“Fire Bug” Charged In Wellington Court
(P.A.) WELLINGTON, This Day. The defence of insanity was raised in the Supreme Court- today when Monica Edna Cann, aged 37, single, appeared.cn trial before Mr Justice Cornish on two charges of attempted arson. The charges related to fires which occurred in a Wellington guest house on November. 3 and December 1, while the accused was a boarder there.
The Crown Prosecutor, Mr W. H. Cunningham, said that in the first lire bedclothes were ignited in one of the rooms, and in the second fire a newspaper had been ignited under a settee in the sunporch. In a, statement to the police, read by- Mr Cunningham, the accused said she had lit both fires, but had no idea why she had done so. Mr A. J. Scott, w*ho appeared for the accused, said she had a “fire bug” and had spent five years in mental hospitals. He submitted that the jury would have no difficulty in finding that she was insane at the time of the guest-house .fires. The jury has retired.
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Greymouth Evening Star, 28 April 1949, Page 7
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178“Fire Bug” Charged In Wellington Court Greymouth Evening Star, 28 April 1949, Page 7
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