Flowers placed outside the Railside Dairy where Arun Kumar was stabbed to death by two boys.

For three weeks three families sat side by side at the High Court at Auckland, separated by nothing but plastic arm rests.

At the centre of them all, the Kumars. A grieving family who lost a father and husband when Arun Kumar was stabbed to death at the Henderson dairy he owned and loved while his wife, Anita Kumar, watched on helplessly.

Anita Kumar attended court daily, on the first day giving evidence to her terror as she desperately tried to save her husband by hitting his assailant with his own weapon- a metal pole.

READ MORE: One teen found guilty, another not guilty of manslaughter

She cried throughout the trial as the jury watched over and over again, the CCTV footage that showed the tragic crime.

Crowding most of the public gallery was the family of the two boys accused of Kumar's death. A 14-year-old charged with his murder was ultimately found guilty of manslaughter while his younger friend accused of manslaughter was found not guilty of any crime. The latter was just 12-years-old at the time of Kumar's death.

The court heard the sad history of these families. The eldest of the boys lived in a "drug house," his brother said. Mum would sell cannabis and synthetics and people would come and go frequently. When the accused was eight he was hit by a car. A terrible accident on a pedestrian crossing that defence lawyer Maria Pecotic said had horrific, reverberating consequences.

Despite suffering a traumatic head injury the accused was discharged from hospital early and never received follow up care. His head was like a ticking time bomb, neuropsychiatrist Valerie McGinn told the court. Children with brain injuries can't take noise, light or complex situations. They need peace and quiet.

He received neither, frequently moving from house to house, school to school. Eight schools in total, the court was told. Eventually he began speaking of suicide and acting up at school. He smoked synthetic drugs to cope.

The younger of the friends came from an equally as tough background. Mum was frequently beaten by dad. Grandma tried desperately to get her grandson to school in the mornings, and often fed him his dinner. She moved the family next door to her home. A gate was installed in the fence so she could run faster to the house when the screams started.

He suffered a brain injury in utero, the consequence of of mum drinking throughout her pregnancy. It caused his language and learning difficulties. He tried to commit suicide.

These were no ordinary boys, the court was told. These boys were products of their upbringings, of their health, of their age.

THE WELFARISING OF CRIME

In a paper presented to the 2009 Children and the Law International Conference entitled How to turn a child offender into an adult criminal, Principal Youth Court Judge Andrew Becroft contended that the type of parenting children received was a significant risk factor in adolescent anti-social behaviour. "The influence of families cannot be ignored," he said.

In New Zealand, criminal responsibility starts at the age of 10 but even then, children aged 10 to 11 can't be prosecuted for anything but murder or manslaughter. When a youth is accused of the more serious crimes, their case is deferred to the High Court instead of being dealt with in the youth courts.

The Ministry of Justice says the law tries to keep youth out of the courts for as long as possible, with alternative methods of proceedings against youth offending being the likes of counselling, community work, or maintenance of school attendance.

In his paper, Becroft goes on to describe the delicate balancing of not criminalising a welfare issue, but not "welfarising" a criminal issue.

University of Auckland associate clinical psychology professor Ian Lambie says defence lawyers are right to bring up health, welfare and upbringing issues when it comes to young offenders.

For the past 25 years Lambie has focused his research on youth offending.

"When you've had an adverse upbringing it affects your choices and engagement in pro social behaviour," he says.

"I think you're so highly influenced by those around you, in terms of your peer group, and your ability to make good choices is less even though you know what's right and wrong.

"With a traumatised background, you're far more impulsive, and that's a big thing. You are characterised by significant emotional deregulation and that affects your ability to self regulate your emotions in a pro social way."

Child advocates says parents who expose their children to neglectful upbringings need to be held to account.

The founder of the trust For the Sake of our Children, John Sax, says New Zealand's political correctness has gone "way too far".

"We have to regrettably deliver justice for all concerned. We can't escape from that. But I think we need to really reset our compass on collective responsibility, particularly those of the parents," he said.

"It's not alright for kids to be brought up in any environment. We have to rethink how to protect and look after our children because if we don't we have the consequences we have here.

"Our political correctness has gone way too far in that we have to hold parenting or caregivers to the degree of responsibility they should have."

He hoped the teens involved would be given the love and nurture they needed to prevent either of them appearing before a court on charges ever again.

WHAT FUTURE FOR THE TEENS

In the long term Lambie believed the impact of the court process on the future of the teen found guilty of manslaughter would be "negligible" unless he was "stigmatised and labelled" in way he said Bailey Junior Kurariki was.

Kurariki gained notoriety for taking part in the killing of pizza delivery man Michael Choy in 2001 and subsequently became one of the country's youngest youth offenders.

He was convicted of manslaughter aged 13.

"He actually didn't kill Michael Choy, he was was part of the process," Lambie says.

"But if you interviewed 10 people down the street, the ones who knew his name would say he killed Michael Choy and that's not actually the case. The reputation, the name, the label that he got from that clearly wasn't helpful for him and didn't help his rehabilitation at all."