Boarder jailed on arson charge

Press, 16 August 1989, Page 12

Boarder jailed on arson charge

A man who helped fight a fire he had earlier set against the wall of a weatherboard house was jailed yesterday for 10 months.

Scott Douglas Meadows, aged 20, unemployed, appeared for sentence before Mr Justice Tipping in the High Court at Christchurch, having pleaded guilty to setting alight the Ferry Road home where he was boarding.

The fire, on June 30, was lit after a domestic dispute between Meadows and the women who lived in the house with her two children.

That evening they consumed alcohol and prescription pills and their dispute became more heated. Meadows went outside and set alight kindling

and paper beneath the complainant’s bedroom window. The two children were asleep in a nearby bedroom.

Meadows returned inside and soon after the complainant discovered smoke in the hall and bedroom area.

Meadows helped fight the fire and was attacked by the complainant with a knife, suffering a cut to a finger. Mr John Halls, in asking for a lenient prison term for Meadows, said his client had been in a tenuous and volatile relationship with the complainant. The complainant had taken up with another man, who moved into the house.

Meadows’s decision to set alight weatherboards

was impulsive and stupid. He had not intended to cause a big fire, or to cause harm to anyone, Mr Halls said.

Mr Justice Tipping, in jailing Meadows, said it was disturbing the fire was set near the room where the two children slept. While the youngsters were not actually placed in danger, there had been considerable potential for that to occur.

His Honour said jealousy and spite seemed to be the motivation behind the fire.

He accepted that Meadows did not want to harm anyone but the fire was an act of gross irresponsibility and recklessness.

Mr Raoul Neave appeared for the Crown.