CHARGE OF ARSON

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 185, 3 May 1933, Page 10

CHARGE OF ARSON

House Wilfully Fired ELDERLY MAN CONVICTED Dominion Special Service. Palmerston North. Alay 2. Pleading not guilty to a charge of arson, Emil Charles Harry Noffke, aged 55 years, of AVoodville, appeared in the Supreme Court this morning before his Honour Air. Justice Reed. The jury returned a verdict of guilty and accused was remanded for sentence. The Crown prosecutor said it was alleged that accused had wilfully set fire to a vacant seven-roomed house at the corner of Hair and Fox Streets, AVoodville. John Redwood said he was at his mother’s house at AVoodville on the nigljt of February 4. He had seen accused enter an unoccupied house on the corner of Hall and Fox Streets. He saw accused in a back room with a lighted match, and saw him bend down in a corner. After the fire had been quelled he visited the house and found that the fire had been located in the corner where he had seen accused with the lighted match. AVilliain J. Goodwin said he had seen accused bending down in the back room, and later saw him leaving the house. He had extinguished the fire, which had been located in the corner where he saw accusd bending down. Constable Skinner, of AVoodville, said accused had made a statement denying that he had been near the house on the night of the fire. Accused did not give evidence or address the jury.