A 16-year-old who stabbed a Good Samaritan to death in Perth last year has avoided a life prison sentence.
The teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was found guilty of the murder of Petr Levkovskiy, 42, who was attacked at Bull Creek in May 2022.
The father-of-two died after he was viciously stabbed while attempting to stop the teenager from stealing a bike from a 10-year-old boy.
He and his wife Anna approached the thief, then aged 15, after overhearing a commotion outside of their home, when he was stabbed in the stomach with an 18-centimetre filleting knife.
Levkovskiy’s wound was a horrifying 11 centimetres deep.
The teen avoided a life sentence today, instead being dealt eight-and-a-half years behind bars with a non-parole period of five-and-half years.
The first two years of his sentence, while he remains underaged, will be served in juvenile detention.
The boy’s young age, remorse and relatively good behaviour in custody had impacted the sentence.
The court heard the teenage killer was a “good student in a stable family” before becoming involved with drugs and alcohol, putting him on a path of “a gangster lifestyle”.
The judge said the teen acted “immaturely, thoughtlessly and callously” and carried a knife around thinking it was “cool and tough”.
Levkovskiy, an engineer, had moved his family from Russia just a few years ago because he loved Australians.
Friends described him as a joy to all who knew him.
His wife was too distraught to speak to media today as she fought back tears while leaving the sentencing.