A teenage boy convicted of the murder of schoolgirl Liberty Templeman has been jailed for a minimum of 11-and-a-half years.
Theo Kriel, 16, appeared in the High Court in Whangarei on Tuesday for sentencing for the murder that shocked the small Northland town of Kerikeri in 2008.
Kriel, who admitted assaulting Miss Templeman, was convicted of her murder in February following a two-week trial.
The bruised, semi-naked body of Miss Templeman was found face-down in a stream in an abandoned orchard on 1 November 2008, a day after the 15-year-old disappeared.
In sentencing on Tuesday, Justice Asher told the court the murder was callous and brutal, and an aggravating feature was Kriel's attempt to avoid detection.
The judge said Kriel had caused terrible suffering to Miss Templeman's family and the community.
However, he made some allowances for the fact that Kriel had been 14 at the time he killed Miss Templeman.
The Crown had asked Justice Asher to consider a minimum non-parole period of 17 years as a starting point, saying the killing had aggravating elements of callousness and depravity.
Gutless, says mother
During sentencing, Kriel wept for the first time as his victim's mother described the pain of her loss.
Rebecca Templeman described the killing as "gutless" and spoke of looking at the battered and bruised face of her dead daughter, whom she said had never shown anything but kindness to her friends.
She said later her daughter's killer should have been shut away for 17 years, not a minimum of 11-and-a-half.
Mrs Templeman says it feels as if that is all her daughter's life was worth, and it is not enough.
