“KEEP AWAY FROM FIRE BRIGADES”

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 85, Issue 221, 19 September 1941, Page 6

“KEEP AWAY FROM FIRE BRIGADES”

CONDITION IMPOSED Bl SUPREME COURT MAN WHO LIT FIKES TO TEST EFFICIENCY (Piess Assn.) Auckland, Sept. IS. A novel condition, that he should not again have any association with fire brigades, was imposed by Mr. Justice Callan in the Supreme Court to-day Upon Brian Clark Edwards, aged 27, until recently superintendent of the Coromandel Fire Brigade, who admitted setting fire to three buildings in Coromandel and had given as the reason his desire to try the efficiency of the brigade. Making a plea for probation, counsel said Edwards was a service-car driver who had previously been in the Onehunga Fire Brigade. In his spare time in Coromandel he became zealous in rehabilitating the brigade there. Somewhat under the influence of drink the prisoner conceived the extraordinary idea of starting fires in. a disused shed and an unoccupied bach. The first two lues were extinguished, hut the bach was destroyed. Mr. Justice Callan said it was somewhat unusual for a Court to be able to feel justified in admitting to probation a man who deliberately committed the grave crime of arson three times. It was truly an extraordinary case.

Edwards would be admitted to probation for three years with conditions that he take out a prohibition order, that he live where directed by the probation officer, that he not be connected with any fire brigade, and that he pay from his earnings £75 to the owner of the bach and 21s costs of prosecution.