Murderer faces sentencing for prison stabbing
File image. © Andrew Bardwell
The man who beat and stabbed 21-year-old Lisa Hurrell to death in her Hornby home in 1998 is now in custody awaiting sentencing for a “frenzied” prison stabbing using a homemade knife.
Terry Jason Nahi, a 42-year-old carver and prison inmate, pleaded guilty in the Christchurch District Court to a charge of wounding another inmate with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.
The victim received stab wounds to his face and body, and defensive wounds to his hands. The Crown described the injuries as “multiple serious stab wounds” that required admission to hospital.
Nahi was surrounded by prison officers in one of the Christchurch Court House’s smallest courtrooms, when he entered his guilty plea today. He had to be brought to the courtroom through the public corridors.
He was jailed for life in 1999 after pleading guilty to the charge of murdering Miss Hurrell, with whom he had been in a stormy and tempestuous relationship since she was 14. He was the father of her three children, but she had a protection order against him at the time.
The three children were in the house and she was holding one of them when Nahi broke in and beat her with a metal pipe and stabbed her three times.
Judge Jane Farish today remanded Nahi in custody to February 17, for sentencing. She asked for preparation of psychiatric and psychological reports which would allow an open-ended sentence of preventive detention to be considered.
However, she said the reports were to consider his mental health state at the time of the prison stabbing, his rehabilitative needs, and his risk of future offending.
She ordered that he remain in Christchurch Men’s Prison during the remand so that the reports could be prepared and he could consult his lawyer, Christchurch-based Tony Garrett. He had been transferred to Auckland after the incident at 8.15am on May 4.
Crown prosecutor Barnaby Hawes said Nahi and the victim were both serving prisoners.
Nahi walked “with haste and reached into his pocket to take out a homemade knife” before entering the victim’s cell. The victim was heard yelling from inside the cell as Nahi attacked him before the struggle spilled out into the corridor.
The victim was on his back, with Nahi leaning over him, stabbing him repeatedly to the head and the top half of his torso. “The victim attempted to defend himself by placing his hands up to protect his face, which had little effect,” said Mr Hawes.
The “frenzied” attack lasted about two minutes and only stopped when Corrections staff intervened and restrained Nahi. He was still shouting threats to the victim as he was taken away.
Judge Farish today gave him a first strike warning under the system that imposes heavier penalties on repeat violent offenders.Ha
Category: News
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