‘Mastermind’ found guilty

Press, 7 December 1988, Page 8

‘Mastermind’ found guilty

PA Auckland Charles Rex Hill, the alleged mastermind behind fires which caused damage of $ll million to two Duty Free Shoppers buildings, has been found guilty by a jury, on two charges of arson. Hill, found guilty in the High Court in Auckland, was described by the Crown as the No. 1 man in the scheme.

He was accused of planning the arsons and hiring Lawrence Frederick Doyle to recruit men to do the job.

One of the men accused of actually committing the arsons, Neil Arthur Clayton, was found guilty by the jury of seven women and four men on two charges of arson and one count of unlawfully taking a motor vehicle.

Hill, the former managing director of Compass Duty Free, was cleared by the jury on a charge of stealing $18,500 from his employer. Both men received the verdicts with little emotion, but two women jurors broke down and cried as the foreman read the jury’s decisions. Mr Justice Gault said the jury had had a heavy task. He apologised for

their having such a long commitment.

The trial, set down for two weeks, lasted four weeks and two days. Hill, aged 52, of Oratia, and Clayton, aged 33, a floor-sander, of Glendene, were remanded in custody for sentence on February 8. The Crown prosecutor, Mr Aaron Perkins, alleged Hill instigated the arsons because he wanted to destroy his main business rival, Duty Free Shoppers, to improve his own financial position. The Crown claimed Hill was suffering a financial crisis after the sharemarket crash in October last year and saw the arsons as “a way out of the mire”.

On the night of January 29 the Duty Free Shoppers warehouse in Mangere and the company’s store in Albert Street, Auckland, were gutted.

Mr Perkins alleged three men, Clayton, Christopher John Brown and Reuben Anthony Honan, were responsible for setting fire to the buildings.

Summing up, page 33