A Rimutaka Prison inmate who stabbed a fellow cellmate over a stray cat was today jailed for a further four years.
Gary Lawrence McKinley was nearing the end of his prison term, after serving more than 20 years of a murder life sentence, when he attacked cellmate Peter Biddle for scaring the feral cat that McKinley had befriended.
McKinley stabbed Biddle twice in the neck and once in the chest with a 12cm kitchen knife while he was watching Coronation Street on Boxing Day last year.
He told a prison manager: "I would do anything to protect the cat, it's all I've got."
The two men were prisoners in the self-care unit used to prepare long-term inmates for release.
McKinley pleaded guilty in Upper Hutt District Court in June to causing grievous bodily harm but the case was transferred to the High Court at Wellington after the Crown asked for a sentence of preventive detention.
Justice Simon France said today that as McKinley was already serving a life sentence, he would only be released on parole if he was not considered a risk to the community.
He accepted that McKinley's attack had been provoked by bullying from Biddle.
"Although your reaction was out of all proportion to his actions, the victim threatened and taunted you over a period of time."
Psychological reports showed McKinley had responded to treatment, and that, while he was at a high risk for violent reoffending, there was a possibility of rehabilitation.
Justice France imposed a non-parole period of two years on the four year sentence.
McKinley was originally jailed in 1987 for the rape and murder of 23-year-old New Plymouth jogger Wendy Snowdon.
