Moore had fallen out with both couples<\/a>. She\u2019d lost her job and been asked to leave the Van Dalens\u2019 property. She was in a dispute with Morrison and Rynhart over the leasing agreement, to the point that lawyers had become involved.<\/p>\nDuring the trial, the court heard from 34 witnesses, including the homeowners, fire investigators, police officers and staff at PHF Science (formerly ESR). No evidence was presented by Moore. <\/p>\n
In summing up the case to the jury yesterday morning, Judge Hobbs said the real issue was whether the Crown had proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Moore was responsible for the charges she faced.<\/p>\n
A motive, means and opportunity<\/p>\n
In its closing arguments, the Crown said that, on the night of the fires, after the Van Dalens had gone to bed, Moore loaded tyres, diesel, buckets, fuel containers and overalls from their property into a car and drove across muddy, uneven terrain in near darkness. <\/p>\n
![\"A]()
A second property on Wards Line was destroyed by fire in October 2022.<\/p>\n
The Crown said the fires were set in locations where they were intended to cause damage to property and endanger lives. <\/p>\n
While the exact sequence of events was not known, it was likely that the first fires were lit at Morrison and Rynhart\u2019s property before Moore went to the Van Dalens to light fires there.<\/p>\n
It took her less than 10 minutes to make her way across the paddocks and light the fires, which caused $2m in damage. <\/p>\n
The Crown said Moore was the only one with the motive, means and opportunity to light the fires.<\/p>\n
![\"Two]()
Two tyres were found at one of the properties after the fires in October 2022.<\/p>\n
She was upset at losing her job with the Van Dalens and unhappy with the lease arrangement for her cattle.<\/p>\n
Before the fires, she told one friend that she felt alone and wanted to do something that would get her sent to prison. <\/p>\n
On the night of the fires, Moore woke another neighbour and told her: \u201cNo one\u2019s going to be safe, and I\u2019ve had enough. I\u2019m going to deal with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
She knew where the Van Dalens stored the items needed to set the fires, and knew her way around the properties in the near darkness, the trial was told.<\/p>\n
When the Van Dalens went to bed that night, unusually, Moore\u2019s car wasn\u2019t parked outside the sleepout, but had returned by the time they were awoken by the fires. <\/p>\n
A circumstantial case<\/p>\n
Lawyer Janine Bonifant, who didn\u2019t represent Moore but assisted the court in her absence, said it was clear the fires were started deliberately, but the jury had to be sure Moore was the one who was responsible. <\/p>\n
She said the Crown\u2019s case was circumstantial, with no direct evidence; no eyewitnesses, no confession, surveillance or CCTV footage. <\/p>\n
The prosecution was asking the jury to infer guilt, and suspicion wasn\u2019t enough to prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt. <\/p>\n
A disagreement between the parties wasn\u2019t enough to suggest a motive for arson, she said. <\/p>\n
\u201cPeople have disagreements every day, but you will agree the vast majority don\u2019t resort to arson.\u201d<\/p>\n
The properties weren\u2019t complex or difficult to navigate, and the items taken from the Van Dalens\u2019 property weren\u2019t locked away or secured. Anyone could have had access. <\/p>\n
Bonifant said the Crown had pointed to threats Moore made before the fires, but it was clear from the evidence that Moore hadn\u2019t made direct threats against anyone. <\/p>\n
Again, Bonifant suggested that angry words said in the heat of the moment didn\u2019t equate to an intention to commit arson. <\/p>\n
Ultimately, the jury disagreed, finding Moore guilty of all charges. She will be sentenced in November.<\/p>\n
Catherine Hutton is an Open Justice reporter, based in Wellington. She has worked as a journalist for 20 years, including at the Waikato Times and RNZ. Most recently, she was working as a media adviser at the Ministry of Justice. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the two properties that was set on fire in October 2022. The blue arrow indicates where…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11449,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,95,53,1975,19103,1558,19101,1873,19102,16959,1874,3368,12517,59,60,111,43,139,69,1118,1356,1238,54,1237,62,1354],"class_list":["post-17247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-after","tag-and","tag-arson","tag-at","tag-attend","tag-been","tag-blazes","tag-charges","tag-chose","tag-firearms","tag-found","tag-guilty","tag-jury","tag-maya","tag-moore","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-properties","tag-serious","tag-trial","tag-two","tag-wairarapa","tag-woman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17247\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}