An appeal by a doctor convicted of killing 16-year-old Amber-Rose Rush has been dismissed.
Amber-Rose Bush, 16, was found dead in a pool of blood in her bedroom in February 2018.
Dr Venod Skantha, 32, was charged with her murder and found guilty at the Dunedin High Court 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 non-parole of 19 years.
The 32-year-old denied killing the 16-year-old, with his defence claiming Rush was killed by an intruder who was not him.
But the jury sided with the Crown, saying the Dunedin doctor sneaked into the teenager's home and stabbed her to death.
In his appeal, Skantha's lawyer, Jonathan Eaton QC, argued the evidence given at trial was both "inadmissible and highly prejudicial" and "mishandled by the Judge". He also said the summing-up lacked balance and in myriad ways was unfair to him.
However, this was rejected by the Court of Appeal on Wednesday.
Rush and Skantha met in 2017 through mutual friends when she was 15.
In early 2018, Rush alleged Skantha sexually assaulted her, according to court documents.
Rush went to sleep on his couch after she had been drinking and claimed she woke to find her bra off and Skantha's hands down her pants.
The pair had a falling out after he offered her money to have sex with him and she refused.
Following a heated argument on Facebook, Skantha used a spare key to get inside the teenager's home before slitting her in the throat and stabbing her in the neck six times, the Crown said.
Skantha was arrested the day after her body was found.
