A woman has been found guilty of burning down her partner\u2019s \u201cman cave\u201d after voice messages sent moments before the blaze showed a \u201cthreat of fire\u201d.<\/p>\n
A 10-person jury in the Manukau District Court took about a day to find Laura Katharina Williams, 30, guilty of the 2022 arson.<\/p>\n
In his closing argument last week, Crown lawyer Kim McCoy said threatening voice messages from Williams, moments before the shed erupted into flames, were \u201cpowerful evidence\u201d that she had set the blaze.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was not a random threat of assault or breaking something, this was a threat of fire,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The court heard that on February 11, 2022, Williams\u2019 partner Anthony Buckton assaulted her and, when the police were called, he cut off his ankle monitor and fled his mother\u2019s property where they pair lived.<\/p>\n
Just before midnight, call logs showed Buckton rang his mother Sharon Pawa to tell her to check on his belongings.<\/p>\n
The logs showed that around the same time he also forwarded on to his mother three threatening voice messages from Williams.<\/p>\n
One told him to come get his \u201cf***in\u2019 mutt\u201d, the dog they shared, before it died outside, another said Buckton or \u201cAnts\u201d was \u201creal mature\u201d for taking all the drugs or \u201cnerve blockers\u201d off the property.<\/p>\n
The third message was the most telling, McCoy concluded.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll your s***\u2019s already f***in\u2019 burnt so don\u2019t even bother trying to get it,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n
This was \u201cpowerful evidence\u201d of Williams\u2019 \u201cknowledge and intent\u201d before the fire, McCoy said.<\/p>\n
There were coincidences in life, he continued, but that message, sent just moments before the fire, was not one of them, and \u201cdefied common sense\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Crown said Laura Williams used leftover lawn mower petrol and a lighter to start the fire. Photo \/ Fire and Emergency New Zealand<\/p>\n
Williams claimed messages \u2018not me\u2019<\/p>\n
In a police interview after the fire and when she took the stand in the trial, Williams denied that it was her voice in the messages.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t simply \u2018I cant remember\u2019,\u201d McCoy reminded the jury. \u201cIt was \u2018that is not me\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
That was why the jury should scrutinise Williams\u2019 \u201cunreasonably self-serving\u201d evidence carefully.<\/p>\n
Buckton and his mother had confirmed the voice in the messages belonged to Williams, McCoy reported.<\/p>\n
Williams also claimed to have left the property for good, just hours before the fire started without packing a bag.<\/p>\n
McCoy questioned why the woman didn\u2019t pack a bag, if all her belongings were in the caravan she and Buckton shared.<\/p>\n
Defence asked, \u2018are you sure?\u2019<\/p>\n
While defence lawyer Vernon Tava said in his closing argument that there was no evidence that Williams picked up a petrol can, poured \u201ca cup or two\u201d on Buckton\u2019s things and set them alight.<\/p>\n
He suggested the voice in the messages was not his client.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s been clear from the very first time she was asked … that was not her voice,\u201d Tava stated.<\/p>\n
He said while giving her account in the trial, Pawa was, at best confused, and at worst a liar.<\/p>\n
He claimed that Pawa and her son had control over Williams\u2019 social media accounts and had framed her using the voice messages.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you sure that Ms Williams damaged Mr Buckton\u2019s makeshift workshop?\u201d Tava asked the jury. \u201cThe answer is no.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite his direction, two days later the jury came back with a guilty verdict.<\/p>\n
Williams is set to be sentenced for the arson in October.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A woman has been found guilty of burning down her partner\u2019s \u201cman cave\u201d after voice messages sent moments…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":480330,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-480329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480329","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=480329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/480330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}