Doctor guilty of murder
The grieving family of slain teen Amber-Rose Rush have talked of the pain of losing the loved 16-year-old and her mother.
Amber-Rose’s relatives, many of whom wore T-shirts bearing her image, hugged in court when Dr Venod Skantha was led back into the cells of the High Court in Dunedin after being found guilty of murder yesterday evening.
The 32-year-old Dunedin doctor showed no emotion when the jury deemed he had murdered AmberRose in her home on February 2 last year.
He was also found guilty of four charges of threatening to kill.
The jury took just over three hours to reach a decision.
Shane Rush, Amber-Rose’s father, spoke of the ‘‘horrendous time’’ the family had experienced.
‘‘The taking of Amber-Rose’s life has affected us in every way. ‘‘Two family members are now gone, and everyone else has to find a way to move on.’’ Amber-Rose’s mother, Lisa-Ann Rush, died in a suspected suicide a few months after discovering her beloved daughter’s body.
The family
thanked police ‘‘for all their hard work’’, along with the judge, the jury and prosecution for their time spent delivering justice ‘‘for our beautiful young hero’’.
Justice Gerald Nation noted ‘‘it has been a long trial’’. The case was heard over nearly four weeks and involved more than 1000 pages of evidence and dozens of witnesses.
Several members of the jury were visibly upset after the verdicts were delivered.
The judge convicted Skantha and remanded him in custody for sentencing on March 6.
Skantha was also given a warning under the three strikes law for violent offenders.
His lawyer, Jonathan Eaton, QC, declined to comment outside court.
Police said they would comment after sentencing.
Justice Nation earlier said
Amber-Rose was killed in a ‘‘coldblooded and efficient execution’’.
The Crown alleged Skantha needed to silence Amber-Rose after she posted a series of messages between the pair on Instagram, which would have ended his already faltering medical career.
The defence argued that was an extreme position, as those allegations were not a concern for Skantha.
They argued the key witness, who idolised Skantha, was involved in the teen’s death in an effort to save his medical career for him.
The judge earlier reminded the jurors they needed to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Skantha killed Amber-Rose, and that he had made threats to kill.
If the jurors decided the witness
was an accomplice, it did not mean they had to acquit Skantha.
The jurors were urged to assess the honesty and reliability of witnesses, the facts established and the ‘‘inferences you can draw from that’’.
Skantha, who was on a final warning at Dunedin Hospital, had everything to lose, prosecutor Robin Bates told the court on Tuesday morning.
But Eaton pointed the finger at the Crown’s teenage key witness, who has name suppression.
‘‘He is the person who is at the heart of this case,’’ Eaton said before a packed gallery later that afternoon.
‘‘I suggest he would do anything to protect Venod Skantha,’’ Eaton said.
He described the police approach to the key witness as ‘‘blinkered’’.
Eaton urged the jurors to acquit Skantha if they doubted the evidence of a witness, who described himself as a ‘‘compulsive liar’’ in his police interviews.
The Crown alleged Skantha, who was driven to Amber-Rose’s Corstorphine home by the teen witness, entered the 16-year-old’s home with a spare key, then stabbed her with a knife he brought from his home.
Amber-Rose was stabbed multiple times in the back of her neck.
‘‘The person who did this, was really, really angry,’’ Bates said.
He said Skantha knew to target Amber-Rose’s carotid artery and windpipe, as it was ‘‘all part of his training’’ as a doctor.
The attack was not some ‘‘random clumsy attempt’’ but a focused attack designed to silence Amber-Rose.
Bates said the killer was ‘‘hellbent on getting rid of the contents of [Amber-Rose’s] phone’’, and that evidence pointed to one person: Venod Skantha.
The jury agreed.