YOUTH SETS FIRE TO SHED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 166, 16 July 1931, Page 5

YOUTH SETS FIRE TO SHED.

(By Telegraph.—Press Association.)

WELLINGTON, Wednesday.

A youth, Jack Mervyn Wiffan, aged 19, who had been employed on a dairy farm near Wellington, pleaded guilty in the Magistrate's Court to-day to a charge of arson and was committed to the Supreme Court for sentence.

Detective Jarrold said that, with a constable, he visited the farm at which accused was employed in order to inquire about some sheepskins. While witness was questioning accused about the skins accused's employer arrived, and while witness was conversing with the employer accused slipped away. A minute or two later the constable, who was sitting in' a car on the road, asked where smoke was coming from. It was then found that a hayshed was on lire. It was destroyed within an hour. The detective assisted the farmer to get out some heifers which were in the shed.

In a statement to the police, accused admitted setting fire to the slicd, but said he was not to blame, alleging that his employer asked him to do it. Ho added he knew there mifflit have been trouble over a sheepskin in the shed.