SET FIRE TO HIS SCHOOL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVIII, Issue 17794, 30 May 1921, Page 5

SET FIRE TO HIS SCHOOL.

BOY'S /RASH ACTION.

" WANTED TO SEE BRIGADE."

A strange reason for having set fire to the Napier Street School on the evening of May 18, was given by a 14-year-old schoolboy, who admitted the offence when charged in the Juvenile Offenders' Court on Saturday, before Mr. J. W. Poynton, S.M., In a statement to the police, the boy detailed the incidents leading up to the offence. He was a pupil at the school and was in standard IV. On Wednesday, May 18, a sentence, which the class was set to correct, commenced: " The firemen approached the burning building." This stirred his imagination to such an extent that he remarked to another boy that he would like to see the school burning. Ha received the reply that he would not dare to do it. That evening he was sent on a message on his bicycle, and returned past the fire station. This caused him to think of the incident earlier in the day and he thought he would set the school on fire. He went to the school, climb**! into his classroom, removed his own bag and books, set fire to some papers, put them in a cupboard, watched the fire start, and left. From a distance he watched the fire flare up, and was going to give the alarm, when he was told that a resident living near the school had already done so. He waited till the brigade arrived and extinguished the flames, and then went home. It was stated that the boy's conduct previously had been without a blemish and he belonged to a good family. The damage to the school was estimated at £25.

The magistrate remarked that this was an instance of " adolescent insanity." The boy was admitted to probation for five year,s, his father being ordered to make restitution for the damage within a. year.