Skantha brutally murdered Amber-Rose to stop her exposing him for offering to pay young women for sex.
The Dunedin doctor sneaked into the 16-year-old’s home and stabbed her to death in February 2018.
Skantha (32) is due to be sentenced for the murder in the High Court at Dunedin this afternoon.
Amber-Rose’s family say they want justice for the teenager — and an acknowledgement of the role Skantha played in her mother’s suspected suicide four months later.
On the eve of the sentencing, Amber-Rose’s stepfather Brendon MacNee told the Herald that he wanted Skantha’s sentence to adequately represent a ‘‘life for a life’’.
‘‘It’s been horrific,’’ he said.
‘‘As a doctor, he took an oath to save lives, not to take them away. I never want him out of jail.
‘‘The Bible says ‘an eye for an eye’. I can’t close my eyes at night — all I see are their dead bodies. The nightmares are horrific.’’
‘‘I believe he is directly responsible for two deaths — Lisa-Ann died with Amber that day. We had to go through two deaths. We were a close and loving family — no-one thought of suicide. He has destroyed our entire family,’’ he said.
‘‘Our grandkids had to leave town because people were staring at them and teasing them and stuff.
‘‘No-one could leave the house after Amber’s death,’’ Mr MacNee said.
He said he and Lisa-Ann had been ‘‘soul mates’’ for 13 years.
She had never recovered after the morning the couple found Amber-Rose murdered in her bed at the family’s Corstorphine home.
‘‘There was blood everywhere. I tried to do CPR but she was cold,’’ Mr MacNee said.
‘‘Lisa-Ann screamed — I will never forget that scream. Lisa-Ann also died that day but it took four months for her body to catch up.
‘‘Her soul went with that scream. After Amber’s death she was a totally different person and would just stare into space.’’
Lisa-Ann died four months after the murder in a suspected suicide.
Skantha’s trial was told Amber-Rose had considered blackmailing the doctor and she and Lisa-Ann had previously discussed going to his house to ask for money.
In the days after Amber-Rose’s murder Skantha had visited a grieving Lisa-Ann, taking her flowers and a card, and speculated as to who the killer could be.
Skantha was found guilty of Amber-Rose’s murder in November last year.
Mr MacNee’s experience as a victim in the justice system, and from following the Grace Millane case, has prompted him to launch a petition calling on Parliament to ensure that a sentence of life imprisonment does in fact mean life, with no parole for those convicted of murder and serious sexual violation crimes.
‘‘It’s about keeping serious offenders like murderers and sex offenders in jail forever,’’ he said.
Mr MacNee’s demand for justice is mirrored by Amber-Rose’s birth father, Shane Rush, who wants a ‘‘fair and just’’ sentence for his daughter’s killer.
‘‘I understand how the world is, there is famine, there is disease, there are wars and I understand the cycle of life — but murder is something you cannot explain.
‘‘If you take someone’s life you forfeit your own.’’
Mr Rush is also struggling to come to terms with the death of his ‘‘beautiful‘‘daughter.
‘‘I brought my daughter into this world. I was the first person to touch her when she was born and for me to be the last person to touch in her in a box — to me that is absolutely tragic and I will never forgive him for what he did.
‘‘If you sat in the courtroom and listened to everything that was actually going on there’s more blood than just Amber-Rose’s or my ex-wife — there are a lot more victims out there.
‘‘There was no remorse in his eyes. For me, that was really hard.’’
