Deadly revenge plot results in jail
Arson attack gone wrong led to intellectually disabled man’s death
An Auckland woman described by prosecutors as having a history of revenge plots has been sentenced to eight years and three months’ prison, five years after a bungled arson attack resulted in the death of her intellectually disabled friend.
Jurors in the High Court at Auckland found the 32-year-old, who continues to have name suppression, guilty of manslaughter and arson in July.
“While I accept you did not mean for Mr [Stephen] Ewart to die, you used him as your innocent agent . . .” Justice Geoffrey Venning told the defendant during her sentencing hearing yesterday. “You cynically took advantage of his reliance on your relationship to use him . . .”
He ordered the eight years and three months’ sentence for manslaughter and a five-year sentence, to be served concurrently, for arson.
Ewart’s lifeless, charred body was found in the foetal position on December 9, 2017, outside a Mt Roskill flat where the defendant and her mother were in the process of being evicted. Sixteen milk bottles filled with petrol had been placed under the home.
Ewart, a 58-year-old described as having the mental capacity of a 12- to 13-year-old, had accidentally lit himself on fire in the process of committing arson for the defendant, Crown prosecutor David Johnstone told jurors during the trial.
While no physical evidence or CCTV footage placed the defendant at the scene, she had used Ewart a year earlier to lodge a false assault allegation against a man who had helped her father divorce her mother, Johnstone alleged. And in 2008, she was suspected of having lit her thenboyfriend’s car on fire as the relationship became acrimonious, he noted.
“It does give you an insight into what [her] tendencies were,” Johnstone said, describing the defendant as already knowing through experience “just how coachable, just how susceptible, Mr Ewart was”.
“The fire in 2017 was far more likely to have been inspired by [the defendant] rather than Mr Ewart,” he said.
During the sentencing hearing, Johnstone acknowledged the case was “unique” enough that there weren’t a lot of previous cases to base sentences on. But he asked Justice Venning to take account of two things: “the calculated and methodical way in which the offending was put together in the week prior to the fire” and “the extent to which Mr Ewart . . . was exploited”.
Defence lawyer Tiffany Cooper noted that although intellectually disabled, Ewart “was able to make some decisions”, which led to him being able to live independently and being known for having a “strong personality”.
“He was someone who was still able to form a view as to whether or not he wanted to partake in the offending on the day he died,” she said.
Cooper noted the woman had a post-traumatic stress disorder diagnosis after having moved to New Zealand at 11 years old and being raised in “a dysfunctional and unstable family environment”.
It resulted in a lonely life, she said.