A woman who is currently standing trial for allegedly burning down a house she was buying in order to make a profit from the insurance payout has denied the charges, saying that she was buying the house for her son to stay in.
The accused faced the Rotorua District Court and pleaded not guilty for one charge of arson, the NZ Herald reported. Her former partner was initially co-accused in the case, but the charge against him was thrown out by Judge Greg Hollister-Jones.
The former couple applied for name suppression, but Hollister-Jones denied the motion, which is currently under appeal, meaning their identities cannot be revealed yet.
According to Crown prosecutor Anna McConachy, the accused set fire to the house intentionally on May 8, 2020, for financial gain. She was in the process of buying the house and had already signed the sale and purchase agreement, but had yet to fully settle into the property.
The prosecution’s case said that the woman burned the house because of a clause in the property’s insurance that allowed the sale to continue, minus the insurance payout, if the damage happened before the settlement date.
This, the prosecution argued, gave the woman a financial windfall of around $85,000.
Taking the witness stand, the woman denied the accusation, and she told the jury that she was buying the property for her son, who was having a hard time in finding a home due to his pet dogs.
While being examined by her lawyer, Andy Hill, the woman said her son and her then-partner did not have a good relationship with each other. She wanted her son to move in with them, but her partner disagreed.
This was the main reason she wanted to buy the house, she said, because of “definite tensions” between her son and her partner, who couldn’t stand being in each other’s presence.
During the trial, McConachy said that the woman was buying the house for $345,000 and had paid a deposit of $17,250 after signing the sale and purchase agreement. On the day of the fire, the accused and the seller got into a dispute regarding the cleanliness of the house. This led the accused to ask that the house’s balance be lowered by $10,000. The seller refused and asked her to leave the house.
According to McConachy, the property was insured for $275,000. Due to the deposit having been paid, the accused would have to pay $245,000 minus the insurance payout and the deposit. This meant that the accused would only need to pay $52,750 to fully settle the property, much lower than the initial value.
McConachy said that neighbours spotted the woman at the house minutes before the fire broke out. The seller sent the accused a text message, telling her to retrieve her things from the burning house. She replied at 5:06 pm, saying that she couldn’t because she was in Tauranga.
However, toll receipts and location data on the accused’s phone showed that she was not in Tauranga until 5:45 pm that day.
