Sentencing for a Dunedin doctor has begun with the High Court at Dunedin hearing Amber-Rose Rush's death left her mother "completely broken, completely empty".
Venod Skantha (32) is before the High Court at Dunedin this afternoon where Justice Gerald Nation will soon impose the mandatory life imprisonment alongside minimum-non-parole term.
The former Dunedin Hospital doctor – who was on a final warning for serious misconduct at the time - was found guilty of the murder of 16-year-old Amber-Rose Rush following a jury trial in November last year, as well as four counts of threatening to kill.
Justice Nation said he could not comprehend how Skantha came to murder Amber-Rose.
"I have no idea how anyone who had the discipline and intelligence to train as a doctor and whose vocation should have been to preserve life could have come to kill a young woman in the way you did."
He said section 104 of the Sentencing Act was engaged, which means Skantha will be sentenced to a minimum parole period of at least 17 years.
While Lisa-Ann was not there to see justice for her daughter, her victim-impact statement was read by her son Jayden.
"I've lost my child. She was more than a child, she was my best friend," she wrote.
"I have lost the person who brought our family together . . . I am completely broken, completely empty."
Lisa-Ann outlined the devastating effects of the trauma on her life.
"I don't ever leave the house unless necessary. I barely eat or sleep," she said.
And among her words there was also a sad harbinger of what was to come.
"I don't feel like I can be the way I was. I constantly wish I wasn't here and I was with Amber," Lisa-Ann said.
"I am constantly living with the nightmares of finding Amber . . . It's not a normal life, it's an existence."
Defence counsel Jonathan Eaton QC said his client passed on his sympathy to the Rush family but "steadfastly maintained his innocence".
The defendant's family wanted to attend sentencing, he said, but he forbid them.
The trial heard details of an online conversation between Skantha and Amber-Rose from just hours before her death.
She confronted him the accusations of "touching up" girls and supplying alcohol to minors.
"Imma make sure EVERYONE knows what a sick **** you are, including your work AND the police," the victim messaged.
To show she was serious, Amber-Rose posted screenshots of the conversation on Instagram.
Soon after, Skantha picked up a teenage boy – a mutual friend, who has permanent name suppression – and had him drive to the girl’s Clermiston Ave house.
The defendant was dressed in dark clothes, gloves and a beanie, the jury heard.
After several minutes, Skantha emerged from the home with some of Amber-Rose’s belongings and a bloodied knife.
The pair dumped the victim’s phone at Blackhead and then travelled to the doctor’s Fairfield home where he admitted killing the teen.
The driver – the Crown’s key witness – said Skantha later physically demonstrated how he stabbed Amber-Rose.
During a two-night stay in Balclutha, the defendant burned the clothes he had worn to commit the murder and instructed the teenager to clean his shoes.
The boy told the court he deliberately neglected the job and left blood spots for police to find.
Forensic scientists later matched the blood with Amber-Rose, as well as other samples from inside Skantha’s BMW.
When the doctor dropped his young friend off, he claimed he would kill the boy, his family and his cat if he told police what happened.
Within hours, though, he did just that and Skantha was arrested the same day.
When interviewed by police the man repeatedly denied killing Amber-Rose.
"It's not in my nature. I promise you. I don't know where you're getting this from," Skantha said.
