Links between vehicle and arson

The Crown has laid out a series of links between a vehicle spotted heading towards a Woodville property on the day of an arson and the cannabis grower accused of torching the house.

But the defence says there are discrepancies relating to CCTV footage of vehicle movements.

Kenneth William Earnest Carrington admits cultivating and possessing cannabis for supply, and has been sentenced to home detention. But he denies being responsible for arson at a Woodville property in February last year, and is on trial for that at the Palmerston North District Court.

The house had previously been seized from Carrington as proceeds of his crimes.

Last October, the house was found wrecked, and covered in graffiti taunting police.

Crown prosecutor Truc Tran finished presenting the case against Carrington yesterday.

Detective Ian Mckinnon talked the court through a police search of the property where Carrington lived after he had vacated the Woodville house.

A red Mitsubishi SUV, which matched one owned by Carrington, had been caught on CCTV footage turning on to a road leading to the Woodville property at 11.22am on the day of the arson. Later footage showed it being driven into Dannevirke at 12.12pm.

The court had previously heard how the fire was believed to have been deliberately lit some time not long before 12.30pm.

But the red Mitsubishi wasn’t anywhere to be seen in the initial search. A later search at Carrington’s workplace found his vehicle – only it was green.

Mckinnon photographed chips and paint flakes where a previous coat of red paint showed through. He said Carrington called him on the evening of the first search.

He was angry, and irritated about the search, Mckinnon said. ‘‘He made a point of saying ‘I wasn’t even at Woodville between 12am and 12.30pm’.’’

Mckinnon said Carrington brought that time up unprompted.

CCTV footage was shown to the court. Detective David Marshall explained how he’d established the time stamps on the Woodville footage were inaccurate and how he’d made a correction based on a comparison between his iphone’s time and the time stamp on a particular day in last March.

The defence showed screenshots from CCTV footage, from outside the Fish Spot on Vogel St in Woodville, and The Warehouse in Dannevirke.

The pictures showed two distinctive vehicles making the trip between the two towns – and when Marshall’s adjustments were applied to the Woodville CCTV shots it appeared both had taken about 42 minutes to make the trip.

The defence pointed out this was almost twice as long as Google Maps’ estimate for the trip.

Marshall said this could mean the Dannevirke time stamp was also inaccurate.