CRIME OF ARSON.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20978, 15 September 1931, Page 10

CRIME OF ARSON.

PONSONBY FLATS FIRE. LATVIAN TAILOR SENTENCED. FIVE YEARS* DETENTION. A serious view of the crime of arson attempted in residential flats in Bonsonby last month was taken by Mr. Justice Herdman when the man responsible camo before him for sentence in the Supreme Court yesterday. The prisoner was the owner of the flats, Charles Vernon, aged 55, tailor, and a native of Latvia. Evidence in the Lower Court had shown that there were 14 people, including children, sleeping in the flats, arid that fires had been started in seven different places. Mr. Finlay, speaking on Vernon's behalf, said lie would not for a moment attempt to say anything in justification of what the prisoner had done. The man was a foreigner who came to New Zealand from Latvia in 1915. He was a Stranger in a strange land, and there was no one to whom he could turn for sympathy or support in a crisis. Ho had foreign standards and possibly inherited instincts or tendencies derived from foreign sources. In a country with a history such as Latvia they might not regard arson with the same seriousness or abhorrence as Britishers did.. Throughout his 16 years' residence in New Zealand Vernon had led an exemplary life, and his confreres in the trado had sent in a memorandum saying they had always found him upright and of scrupulously good character, said counsel. There came a time when he had to see his life work broken down. He had invested £3500 in this block of flats at Ponsouby, but for a considerable period it had been a financial loss. At the same time his tailoring business collapsed and, prompted by some evil genius, be turned to this method of retrieving his fortunes. The man had never matured mentally and was in a sense sub-normal and childlike. He had made a voluntary confession and whatever sentence the Court might inflict the penalty apart from that must necessarily be heavy. " Reference has been made to the fact that you are an alien," said His Honor. " That will make no difference in the punishment I propose to mete out to you. You will be dealt with in tins Court in precisely the same way as a British subject. I have not the least doubt that your character in the past has been good but in this case you deliberately and without any fire to property that was vour own." The trouble about arson. His Honor continued, wis that it might mean tho destruction of life. In the present caso 14 people were in the building -when Vernon set it alight, and had the fire taken proper hold possibly life would havo been destroyed. That the man was in financial difficulties was no excuse for committing such a serious offence. " I propose to punish you severely," His Honor said, " not only because you deserve punishment, but as ft warning to other people who might wish to defraud insurance companies that if they come into this Court convicted of such an offence they will meet with a similar fate." His Honor then ordered prisoner to bo detained for reformative purposes for a period not exceeding five years.