SETTER OF FIRES

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 70, 19 September 1941, Page 4

SETTER OF FIRES

U PLACED ON PROBATION

JUDGE IMPOSES CONDITIONS

(P.A.) AUCKLAND, September 18,

The novel condition that he should not again have any connection with fire brigades was imposed by Mr. Justice Callan in the Supreme Court today on Brian Clark Edwards, aged 27, till recently superintendent of the Coromandel Fire Brigade, who admitted setting fire to three buildings in Coromandel and had given as .the reason his desire to try the efficiency of the brigade.

Making a plea for probation, Mi*. Butler said that Edwards was a service car driver who had previously been in the Onehunga Fire Brigade. In his spare time in Coromandel he became zealous in rehabilitating the local brigade. Somewhat under the influence of drink, the prisoner conceived the extraordinary idea of starting fires in disused sheds and an unoccupied bach. The first two fires were extinguished, but the bach was destroyed.

The Judge said it was somewhat unusual for the Court to be able to feel justified in admitting to probation a man who deliberately committed the grave crime of arson on three occasions. It was truly an extraordinary case. Edwards would be admitted to probation for three years with the conditions that he take out a prohibition order, that he live where directed by the Probation Officer, that he be not connected with any fire* brigade, and that he pay from his own earnings £75 to the owner of the bach and 21s costs of the prosecution.