Wellington  - A 15-year-old New Zealand boy was sent to prison for a minimum of 12-and-a-half years on Thursday for beating a Scottish tourist to death with a softball bat as she walked home after a night out in the lakeside tourist town of Taupo on North Island.

Jahche Broughton earlier pleaded guilty to murdering of Karen Aim, 27, on January 27 last year, when he was 14.

Under New Zealand law, murder carries an automatic life sentence, but a judge sets a period of non-parole.

News reports said people in the public gallery of the Rotorua High Court sobbed as the dead girl's father, Brian Aim, said, "I would have been so proud to have taken Karen down the aisle in her wedding dress, instead I took Karen down the aisle in a coffin."

Broughton was also sentenced to six years to be served concurrently for injuring a 17-year-old woman with intent to cause grievous bodily harm in a separate incident two weeks before he killed Karen Aim. (dpa)