Kalib Kerr-Millar has been sentenced to five years seven months in prison. Photo: RNZ / Marika Khabazi
A man who held an elderly woman at knifepoint in her retirement village home and stole her car has been sentenced to five years and seven months in prison.
The 80-year-old woman feared she might die when Kalib Kerr-Millar traced a knife across her throat.
Kerr-Millar, 27, was handed down the sentence by Judge Elkin at the Christchurch District Court Friday afternoon.
It related to a raft of charges he had pleaded guilty to - including unlawfully taking a motor vehicle - with the lead offence being an aggravated burglary in July 2022.
Kerr-Millar entered an elderly woman's home at a Darfield retirement village armed with a knife, and demanded she hand over money and the keys to her car.
Reading out the summary of facts, Judge Elkin said Kerr-Millar searched the woman's home and stole some of her late husband's watches.
The woman was then walked to her car with a knife against her side. She locked Kerr-Millar in the garage, but he bashed the door down.
"You put the knife against her throat and traced it back and forwards. Although you did not cut her she could feel the blade. She thought she was about to die," Elkin said
Kerr-Millar then left in her car.
Elkin said the ordeal had significantly impacted the woman's emotional well-being, and said she felt "fragile, violated and vulnerable."
But Elkin accepted Kerr-Millar had expressed "significant remorse", and was not in a clear state of mind at the time of the offending.
"I acknowledge you had a difficult start in life. You were exposed to drugs from an early age... you had a big and expensive methamphetamine habit at the time of the arrest," she said.
Kerr-Millar's lawyer, April Kelland, said Kerr-Millar had had a disadvantaged upbringing, going through many foster homes.
Elkin said Kerr-Millar had sent a letter of apology to the elderly woman, which had been received positively.