ARSON ADMITTED

Greymouth Evening Star, 1 November 1939, Page 5

ARSON ADMITTED

MAN GRANTED PROBATION. _ [per press association.] HASTINGS, October 31' . • Found guilty of committing arson, Albert Benjamin Kemp, 45, of Haumoana, was admitted to two years’ probation -by Mr.-Justice Blair in the Supreme Court, Napier, to-day. In returning its verdict after a short retirement, the., jury ..made a strong recommendation to leniency. On a second charge.of committing mischief Kemp was found not guilty. .The indictments aiwqe from the burning down-of a seaside iraph at Kairakau beach,., near Waipawa, about September 4. • Thecase .for, the Crown was conducted by Mr. H. .B. Lusk and Mr. E. T. Giffordappeared for the accused. - •* Mr. Lusk said that the land .on.which the cottage-was erected, had been-leas-ed for 10 -years from a Maori in 1929 by the father of the accused. The area had been fenced off. When the bach was built by Kemp’s father it was attached to the soil by piles and concrete. .Some two years ago the rights of the property had been transferred by his father to accused. Several months ago accused approached the native owner with a view to securing an extension of the lease. The Maori had asked for an increased rental, which Kemp was not prepared to pay. They were unable to. reach ah agreement, and when the lease- expired the land and the building affixed to it became the property of the ownor. ' According to accused’s own story, he. had wilfully . set fire to the buildings because he did not like the Maori getting them for nothing, continue Mr, Lusk. There was no lawful justification or excuse for such action, it was a clear case of arson. Accused claimed that he thought the lease gave him a legal excuse to burn the place. It was not a crime to set fire to one’s own building, said Mr. Gifford. In this case, the mere tact that the building was nailed to the piles was the only thing that made accused liable to the charge at all.