Teen jailed for being ‘fire-starter’
A teenager has been jailed for more than two years after torching an elderly Auckland woman’s home in an effort to “smoke her out”, beat her and rob her.
Tristan Taylor, 18, was sentenced in the Waitakere District Court to two years and four months’ imprisonment for an arson he committed that caused about $23,000 of damage.
The court heard how at the time of the fire Taylor had been on bail for assaulting a woman and threatening to stab her and a friend in November last year.
On January 7, the day of the fire, Taylor and a group of teenage friends went doorknocking in Ranui hoping to distract the occupants long enough to steal property from homes.
At the home of an 88-year-old the co-accused, whose case is before the Youth Court, asked for a glass of water but then allegedly kicked a door and broke a window.
Later, the teens returned to the house with a plan to start a fire to flush the pensioner out of the house.
Taylor was encouraged to set a fire inside through the broken window.
The woman was uninjured in the blaze and firefighters were able to contain the fire and save her home.
Taylor claimed he had been threatened with a tyre iron by one of the group who wanted him to set the fire.
Judge Kevin Glubb said the level of premeditation shown was an aggravating factor. It was fortunate that the plan failed, he said.
The elderly woman has been left in shock and has struggled to sleep, fearing the group would return, the judge added. “She notes you have been in custody and she is hopeful you will remain there.”
Judge Glubb accepted that Taylor, who pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity, was genuinely remorseful and the fact he returned to help “shows you have a conscience”.
In a letter before the court, Taylor wrote that he wanted to reassure his victim that he posed no threat to her.
But Crown prosecutor Sam Teppett said Taylor returning to help had limited significance as a mitigating factor, calling the teen the “firestarter”. “He was the one who gathered the newspapers and lit the fire in the first place. He knew that he wasn’t supposed to be [there].”
Defence lawyer Susan Giles said her client accepted responsibility for lighting the fire. Taylor’s actions afterwards were a significant mitigating factor because he had put the victim’s needs above his own, she said.
If he had not returned “he might not have been identified as the offender”, she said.
Giles conceded that the starting point would be imprisonment but said it should be short-term so not to be “crushing” for the young man.
Rather, she said, it should be one that “allowed him to see the light at the end of the tunnel”.
After the house fire, the victim — a devout Catholic and widow — told the Herald she hoped the teenagers could get much-needed help.
“I’m not long for this world but these kids desperately need help.”
At the time police described the arson attack as an “appalling crime”.