{"id":438151,"date":"2026-05-21T09:56:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T09:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/438151\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T09:56:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T09:56:09","slug":"renata-leaf-set-fire-to-his-fathers-waikato-kainga-ora-home-stood-by-and-watched-it-burn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/438151\/","title":{"rendered":"Renata Leaf set fire to his father\u2019s Waikato K\u0101inga Ora home, stood by and watched it burn"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today, Leaf appeared in the Hamilton District Court<\/a> via audio-visual link from the Grace Foundation.<\/p>\n

At the hearing, he pleaded guilty to a charge of arson, for which he was convicted by Judge Philip Crayton.<\/p>\n

He was further remanded to the foundation on electronically monitored bail until his sentencing in August.<\/p>\n

According to the summary of facts, the day of the December 8 fire last year began all right.<\/p>\n

Leaf was drinking at home with his younger brother.<\/p>\n

However, at some point, the pair argued, and his brother left.<\/p>\n

Some time after 10.30pm, Leaf asked his father to take him to buy drugs, but he refused.<\/p>\n

Leaf got angry and abusive, took off his clothes and began walking around the house naked, exposing his backside to his father.<\/p>\n

He then went to the kitchen and came back holding a knife.<\/p>\n

After his father left, Leaf smashed windows and glass doors at the property, threw around objects, and could be heard yelling his father\u2019s name and threatening to kill him.<\/p>\n

Leaf went outside to look for him and his brother and then began throwing rocks at the house, while shouting for them to fight him.<\/p>\n

He went back inside and set fire to a jersey on a couch in the lounge.<\/p>\n

When the jersey failed to catch fire properly, he used more matches to set it alight.<\/p>\n

Leaf watched on as the fire took hold, then grabbed three dogs from the house and went outside, where he watched the house burn.<\/p>\n

When later spoken to by police, Leaf said he could not recall what happened after his brother had left, but admitted lighting the fire to get their attention.<\/p>\n

The house, understood to be worth about $160,000, was destroyed.<\/p>\n

Belinda Feek is an Open Justice reporter based in Waikato. She has worked at NZME for 11 years and has been a journalist for 22.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Today, Leaf appeared in the Hamilton District Court via audio-visual link from the Grace Foundation. At the hearing,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":438152,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[95,14146,3595,9064,2079,42,293,1345,702,23543,69319,43,23544,61392,1551,17218,61,40,38,41,39,1524,26226],"class_list":["post-438151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-and","tag-burn","tag-by","tag-fathers","tag-fire","tag-headlines","tag-his","tag-home","tag-it","tag-kinga","tag-leaf","tag-news","tag-ora","tag-renata","tag-set","tag-stood","tag-to","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-waikato","tag-watched"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438151","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=438151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/438152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=438151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=438151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=438151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}