Minimum 14 years for Nadine's murder

The execution-style shooting of Wanganui mother of two Nadine Timmins has earned her killer at least 14 years' jail.

Karl James Copley Lane, 30, who last month confessed to murdering the 24-year-old in June 2008, was yesterday sentenced by Justice F Miller in the High Court at Wanganui to life in prison with a minimum non-parole period of 14 years.

Closely guarded by two prison officers, the Wanganui man stood motionless in the dock as Justice Miller delivered his sentence.

There was silence too, but a few tears shed, in the public gallery packed with friends and supporters of the victim's and offender's families.

The court heard that Lane shot Ms Timmins in the head with a .38 calibre pistol at point-blank range while the pair were in a car parked in Kowhai St, Wanganui, late on Saturday night, June 28, last year.

Lane then kidnapped two other young women who were in the car and drove aimlessly around Wanganui, refusing to allow his hostages to seek medical help for Ms Timmins.

After his two kidnap victims managed to escape Lane drove the car, a white Corolla, to Liverpool St, Wanganui, where he abandoned it with Ms Timmins still inside.

When police located the Corolla Ms Timmins was still alive and was taken to the critical care unit at Wanganui Hospital where she died.

Lane fled the city but was found four days later and was arrested and charged with murder.
Crown prosecutor Lance Rowe described the killing of Ms Timmins as a deliberate, execution-style killing carried out in a callous and brutal way.

Mr Rowe said the single shot to the victim's head was "clinically administered" in a way that would cause death. The shooting was also marked by Lane's casual announcement to the other occupants of the car that Ms Timmins was dead and his refusal to let her friends take her to the hospital.

The fact that at the time of the shooting Lane was on bail on a charge of injuring with intent and had six previous convictions for violent offending were, Mr Rowe said, aggravating factors in the murder and for those reasons he sought a minimum non-parole jail term of 17 years.
Defence counsel Roger Crowley said Lane unreservedly accepted that the shooting of Ms Timmins was intentional and deliberate.

However, he said the offence was committed against a background of addiction to the drug methamphetamine (P) and the abuse of alcohol and prescription drugs.

Mr Crowley said such was the state of Lane's drug-induced paranoia that he "lost control of the realities of his actions" and murdered a person who was a friend and was actually supporting him through a time of personal crisis.

"That is the fact of methamphetamine addiction."

He said Lane's drug-addled state, in June last year, and his possession of a loaded pistol were "a cocktail for disaster". But Lane had subsequently confessed to the murder and kidnappings and was remorseful.

Mr Crowley argued that for those reasons the more appropriate non-parole jail term was around 12 years.

Delivering his judgment, Justice Miller told Lane the killing was brutal and callous with some of the qualities of an execution, and was "utterly senseless".

"You decided you had the right to take the life of a woman who did you no harm," His Honour said. "And your irrational behaviour adds to the callousness of the crime."

However, Justice Miller said all murders were callous and brutal but there were elements in this case that made the killing a little less brutal or callous than others that had attracted lengthy non-parole sentences.

The main difference was that the murder of Ms Timmins was " spontaneous rather than prolonged".

The life sentence with a 14-year non-parole term was arrived at by giving Lane "credit" for having ultimately pleaded guilty albeit only at the end of last month's depositions hearing held more than a year after the murder, and "some credit" for showing remorse.

Prison sentences were also imposed for the two kidnapping offences and will be served concurrently with the life sentence.