ARSON ADMITTED

Evening Star, Issue 20846, 16 July 1931, Page 2

ARSON ADMITTED

1 1’t i: United Press Association.] WELLINGTON, July l.j. Jack Mervyu Wiffan, a nineteen-year-old cowboy, employed on a dairy farm at Ohariu, near Wellington, pleaded guilty in the Magistrate’s Court to a charge of arson, and was committed to the Supremo Court for sentence. Detective Jarrold said that togethoi with a constable be visited the i'arnl on which the accused was employed in order to inquire about some sheepskins. While ho was questioning the accused about the skins the lad’s employer arrived, and while the detective was conversing with the employer the accused slipped away. A minute or two later the constable, who was sitting in a oar on tire road, called out, asking whore the smoke was coming from. It..was then found that a hayshed was on tire, and it was destroyed within an hour. The detective assisted the farmer to get out some heifers which had been put in the shed. In a statement to the police the accused admitted having set lire to the shod, but said, ho was not to blame, maintaining that his employer asked him to do it. He added that ho know there might have boon some trouble over a sheepskin in the shod.