Denies Setting Fire To Police Station

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31247, 20 December 1966, Page 3

Denies Setting Fire To Police Station

(New Zealand Press Association*

AUCKLAND, December 19.

A 20-year-old farm labourer pleaded not guilty before Mr C. E. H. Pledger, S.M., today to a charge of wilfully setting fire to the Papakura police station on June 18.

The accused is Kelvin David Wright, represented by Mr G. T. Wadsworth.

Detective Senior-Sergeant B. W. James said damage of about £llOO was caused to the station.

A constable, Ralph Thomas King, of Papakura, said that on the night of the fire he was out on patrol with another constable. They heard fire sirens and later found that it was their station that was on fire. He found a gallon tin behind the front door. The doors had been left securely locked.

Barry Lewis Walker, chief fire officer of the Papakura Volunteer Fire Brigade, said he considered the fire was started with something highly inflammable.

Joyce Marie Hopkins, aged 19, of Waitoa, said she had been living in Manurewa earlier this year. On the night of June 18 she went to the Drury Hall by car. Wright travelled in another car. She left the hall about 11.30 p.m. with a Jack Starkie and Wright. Two other people left in another car.

She went into the Papakura railway station and when she returned to the car only “Jack” was there.

Later, while travelling toward the police station about 400 yards from the railway station, she saw Wright and another girl walking toward the ear. The car was later parked near a school. Miss Hopkins said: “I asked Jack where Kelvin was, and as a result of what he told me I looked out the back of the car and saw Kelvin standing right up close to the police station looking in the door. “He went round the lefthand side of the police station, came back again, and came over to the car.

“He said: ‘Keep the motor going for a quick getaway.’ He turned and ran back to the station. I heard glass breaking, a bang and then I saw flames and he was running toward us. “No-one else was with him. He ran back to the car and we left and went to a house in Hunua.

“He asked if I was wild and he did remark that it would teach them to stick a Wright in gaol. “Kelvin remarked about fingerprints. He was worried whether fingerprints would be left on a tin.

Miss Hopkins said that while Wright, herself and two other persons were driving back to Papakura the next morning they met Jack Starkie.

Wright said at that time that if the police came and saw her she should say that she had not seen him for a couple of weeks. Miss Hopkins said she returned to her home at Waitoa, near Te Aroha, about a month later.

Cross-examined by Mr Wadsworth, Miss Hopkins said she had been ’Wright’s girlfriend. Asked why she did not do anything about the fire, Miss Hopkins replied: “Not everyone has got quick reactions.” Irvin Laurence Starkie, aged 28, a charge-hand, of Otara, said he was a friend of Wright and had been to the function at Drury Hall on June 18. While he was parked near the police station later that night, Wright came up and talked. He said he would be back shortly and

that witness should wait for him. Starkie said: “Kelvin walked away behind us. 1 asked him to come back because I wanted to get going.” Asked why he had asked Wright to return, Starkie said he thought he might have been under the impression that Wright was “up to no good.” Wright returned soon afterward, jumped in the car and thej r drove off. In the back of the car Wright was talking about the police station being on fire.

Starkie said he did not hear any sound of glass breaking. He saw a bit of a reflection which he took to be headlights. The hearing will continue tomorrow.