TEMPTED BY WOMAN

Stratford Evening Post, Volume II, Issue 389, 21 October 1933, Page 8

TEMPTED BY WOMAN

Man Sets Fire to Hut

ELEMENT OF HUMAN

DRAMA

Crime Prompted by Jealousy

BOTH SENT TO GAOL \

Press Association.— ODyrUftt ■ Rotorua, Oct. 20

A story that had an element of human drama was told in the Rotorua Court when Bernard McCauley, a 27-year-old bushman at Ngongotaha, was charged on three counts with committing mischief by setting fire to two hutments in a timber workers' camp at Mangarewa Gorge, about 18 mile- from Rotorua. A charge of counselling and procuring McCauley to commit the crime was admitted by a young married woman named Emily Brown, who in a statement to the •police admitted she had been me idly with one of the occupiers of the hu ~ a young bushman named H f ' Mivning, but, piqued hv llu Hen. t v, -h Manner \V: :.; \> ? ... ''OUi.«,cr S 1&. . i) L .u..d to burn dew-

learning's hut stood next to that occupied by another bushman named Harold Keaney and this also caught alight and was destroyed. The value o£ the huts and the personal effects lost by the two men was over £IOO. Detective J. Thompson said the huts were part of a lonely bush encampment and the camp was deserted during the week-end when the crime was committed. McCauley admitted setting fire to Manning's hut. In a statement to the police McCauley said he was actuated by a personal grudge against Manning but this was not borne out in the subsequent investigations, which brought Mrs. Brown into the story. It appeared that the woman, who was 38 years of .age and was married to a busband 65 years old, had been friendly for some years .with Manning, but lately Manning had commenced \to show attentions to her younger sister,. Piqued by this Mrs. Brown had apparently procured McCauley to bum down Manning's hut. The woman had a very strong influence over McCauley, who had admitted riding out to the camp while it was deserted, breaking a window and pouring a bottle of kerosene inside the hut and applying a match,to i it. .. ■ i > :■ I !|*it! Counsel for McCauley and Brown was Mr. E. Roe, who said there was no doubt the woman used her influence over McCauley to persuade him to commit this foolish and desperate act. McCauley was reluctant to do as the woman asked but he agreed under pressure. The magistrate sentenced both the accused to terms of two years' reformative detention, remarking that the woman was worse than the male accused, who had plainly been her tool.