Killer doctor’s appeal dismissed

The Dunedin doctor imprisoned for the murder of a teenage girl who had threatened him with allegations of sexual assault has had his appeal against the conviction thrown out.

A panel of Court of Appeal judges have also said they are satisfied the man committed the crime, and that he is also guilty of threatening to kill four people to silence a witness.

Amber-Rose Rush, 16, was found dead in her bedroom in southwest Dunedin in February, 2018.

Venod Skantha, 32, was charged with her murder, and found guilty by a jury in the High Court at Dunedin in November 2019. He was also found guilty on four counts of threatening to kill. He was later sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum nonparole period of 19 years.

In the Court of Appeal last year, Skantha’s lawyer, Jonathan Eaton QC, argued against his conviction and sentence, saying a key witness in the case should have been treated as an accomplice to the murder.

Amber-Rose and Skantha met in 2017 through mutual friends when she was aged 15. In January 2018, Amber-Rose told a friend that Skantha had allegedly sexually assaulted her after a night of heavy drinking. Then, on February 2, she posted screenshots of a conversation with Skantha on Instagram, claiming he had been supplying alcohol and “touching up young girls”. She said she would be approaching police and the hospital with her claims.

Skantha had already been given a final warning for misconduct.

She and Skantha got into a heated argument over Facebook messenger, following which he had a teenage friend drive him to Amber-Rose’s home. When he emerged from the house, he was carrying the victim’s phone, licence, and a blood-soaked knife.

Despite Skantha making death threats against him, the friend told police what happened. Skantha was arrested the day after Amber-Rose’s body was found.

Skantha’s argument was that the witness had actually been the one to kill Amber-Rose. At appeal, Eaton argued the teenager should have been treated as an accomplice and the jury should have been warned his evidence could be unreliable for that reason.

Other appeal grounds included that some evidence brought to trial should have been inadmissible and that the judge’s summing up to the jury was unbalanced and unfair.

The Court of Appeal was not convinced, however and the appeal was dismissed.