Homeowner ‘snapped’ and set fire to tyre pile

A North Canterbury homeowner ‘‘snapped’’ and set fire to a massive pile of tyres after a two-year battle to get them removed from a neighbouring property.

Gary Robert Grimmer, 62, was sentenced to nine months’ supervision by the Christchurch District Court yesterday after earlier pleading guilty to arson.

Grimmer’s offending was the culmination of a lengthy and fruitless battle to get a pile of 400,000 tyres removed from a yard across from his house in Amberley.

The yard’s lessee, Michael Le Roy, started storing end-of-life tyres on the property in February 2016. Le Roy was collecting them for Tyre Recycling Services New Zealand Ltd and 2016 Tyre Shredding Ltd.

Grimmer, who lived with his wife across the road, put his house on the market about the same time, and planned to move to Halswell in Christchurch.

He reported the tyre pile to the Hurunui District Council and Environment Canterbury (ECan), but no immediate action was taken.

By mid-February 2017, the yard housed two tyre piles: one with about 400,000 tyres and a smaller one with about 20,000 tyres.

ECan said it could not take action because the piles did not pose an environmental risk.

Grimmer set fire to a small patch of grass, and the blaze spread to some timber and a handful of tyres.

The owner of the property then took control of the land and barred Le Roy from storing any more tyres there, but another 12 months passed without the tyres being removed or any discernible action taken by the district council or ECan.

In February 2018, Grimmer used petrol and paper to set fire to the smaller pile of 20,000 tyres, then went home and called the fire brigade.

ECan advised the firefighters not to use water to extinguish the fire because it would likely contaminate groundwater. The fire was left to burn down until it could be smothered two days later.

During Grimmer’s sentencing, Judge Jane Farish said arson was often motivated by malice, but that was not the case here.

It was clear Grimmer’s actions were motivated by frustration, and he had ‘‘snapped’’ because he felt nothing was being done by authorities, she said.

Grimmer’s intention was not to cause damage, but to bring more attention to his plight. He accepted his actions were inappropriate and his mental health has suffered as a result of the stress of the last four years, the judge said.

She ordered Grimmer to complete any programme deemed appropriate by his probation officer.

Reparation of $159,000 was sought after the owner of the property was served with a notice in September 2018 to remediate the land to ECan’s satisfaction.

Judge Farish said it was unrealistic to impose such a reparation order as Grimmer could not afford it, and it was likely the landowner would have been stuck with the cost of removing the tyres even if the fire had not happened.

In April 2018, the two companies involved in stockpiling the tyres were given an enforcement order requiring them to remove the tyres by the end of that year.

The two companies and director Peter Benden were charged with failing to comply when the deadline was not met. Charges against Le Roy’s stepdaughter, another director of the companies, were dropped.

An ECan spokeswoman said a three-day trial is scheduled to begin on July 13.

The issue of who should remove the tyres may also be settled through court proceedings, she said.

Efforts to clean up the tyres have picked up pace with two parties apparently vying for the task.