EXTRAORDINARY CASE.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 6 February 1925, Page 5

EXTRAORDINARY CASE.

YOUTH CHARGED WITH ARSON

OCCUPANT OF BUILDING BURNT

(by TELEGRAPH —PRESS ASSOCIATION.) NAPIER, Feb. 5. Already serving a term of ' seven years’ detention in the Borstal Institution in Invercargill, to which he was committed in 1923 from the Napier Supreme Court for burning down a homestead on the Smedley estate in March 'of that year, John Gdrtshore Robertson, a well-set-up and smartlooking lad, about 19 years of age, stepped into the dock at the Napier Police Court this morning before Mr R. W. Dyer, S.M The charges against hinj were: (1) Setting fire to a building oil the Smedley estate, near Tikokino, consisting of sleeping quarters, dining room and kitchen, valued at £490, the property of His Majesty the King, on July 14, 1923, thereby committing arson; (2) further with, on the same date, committing manslaughter by setting fire to a certain building on the Smedley estate, thereby causing the death of John Juden. ( The accused was undefended, and Detective-Sergeant Butler, who conducted the prosecution, said it was a most extraordinary case. The accused had appeared in the Napier Court in 1923 on a charge of arson, and was subsequently sentenced to the Borstal Institute at Invercargill for a term of seven years. Tfie arson charge in question then was the burning of a homestead on the station on March 25, 1923. Later the men’s sleeping quarters on the same station \yere also mysteriously destroyed by fire, and as a result of the latter fire a man had lost his life. The accused had admitted causing the first fire, but had denied causing the second outbreak.

On October 16, 1924, while the prisoners at the Borstal Institute were being paraded, the accused handed to the chief warder a note confessing his responsibility for causing the second fire, anti that note was the foundation of the present charges. / ' Th accused pleaded guilty, and was committed for sentence.