ATTEMPTED ARSON.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 110, 12 May 1930, Page 9

ATTEMPTED ARSON.

YOUNG MAN SENTENCED.

"KNEW WHAT HE WAS ABOUT"

PLEA OF MENTAL LAPjSE FAILS,

'•The offence is a serious one. The accused endangered the lives and houses of neighbours and deliberately intended to clear himself from financial liability,"' said Mr. Justice Smith in the Supreme Court this morning, when sentencing Edward Harold Alexander, confectioner (27) to reformative detention for a period not exceeding twelve months on a charge of attempted arson at Auckland. In pleading for leniency for accused, Mr. J. J. Sullivan said that Alexander bad admitted leaving a lighted candle on a block of kerosene-sprinkled wood in his home, but at the time he committed the offence he was a sick man and was behind in his payments on his home, insurance, rates and drainage. Counsel produced a medical certificate in which the opinion was expressed that Alexander committed the offence in a fit of mental aberration.

His Honor said that accused would have cleared his mortgage .and other liabilities if'his house had been burned down. Would counsel accept the view that it was of great public importance that houses should not be deliberately burned down?

Mr. Sullivan said the case was one where a man was suffering ill-health. He felt justified in asking for probation for accused.

Appearing for the Crown, Mr. V. N. Hubble said there had been a certain amount of deliberation about the offence. Public safety would be scarcely safeguarded by men being admitted to probation on attempted arson charges. Admittedly an attempt only had been made to burn clown the house, but the consequences might- have been serious had neighbours not ' discovered the lighted candle. "The view I have formed is that the prisoner acted with deliberation," said His Honor in passing sentence. "He knew what he was about, and to say he performed the otrence in" a lit of mental aberration does not square with the facts of the case."