Henderson<\/a> Police station she kicked a female police officer in the groin.<\/p>\nIn court, Judge Maria Pecotic read out the victim impact statement of Henderson\u2019s ex-husband.<\/p>\n
On the night of the arson, the estranged couple were meant to sign papers for the sale of the house, which didn\u2019t go through because of the fire, his statement said.<\/p>\n
He also wasn\u2019t able to claim insurance as Henderson had deliberately set fire to the property, some of which they jointly owned.<\/p>\n
His statement said he couldn\u2019t afford to fix, clean or repair the damage, which affected him mentally.<\/p>\n
The caravan belonged to another ex-partner and his son\u2019s car had also been \u201clost\u201d in the fire.<\/p>\n
![\"The]()
The caravan and carport in Massey, West Auckland, engulfed in flames.<\/p>\n
The judge also read out the impact statement of the woman who owned the caravan, which said the impact of the fire had been \u201cdevastating\u201d.<\/p>\n
The woman was at a particularly low point in her life at the time of the blaze, the statement said, and Henderson\u2019s actions showed a lack of \u201cempathy and compassion\u201d towards her.<\/p>\n
She said she was frightened, scared for her life and had to be put into emergency housing, having lost about $80,000 worth of property.<\/p>\n
The judge said Henderson had been in a relationship with her former partner for 16 years.<\/p>\n
In a Corrections report, the woman admitted to having an alcohol addiction that has lasted 31 years, starting when she was 15 years old.<\/p>\n
Being remanded in custody in March was her first time being sober since then, the report said.<\/p>\n
There was also an alcohol and drug report before the court that said as a child, Henderson had a fractured relationship with her father, an alcoholic, reconnecting with him when she was 13.<\/p>\n
She then had an addiction to methamphetamine that spanned her time overseas and when she moved back to New Zealand.<\/p>\n
At some point, there was a parenting order made in favour of her former partner and the woman who owned the caravan, the report said.<\/p>\n
Henderson, while consuming a large amount of alcohol and cannabis, had been \u201cruminating\u201d on \u201cpast grievances\u201d related to that order when she set fire to the caravan, the court heard.<\/p>\n
![\"Fire]()
Fire crews tending to the Massey blaze in March this year.<\/p>\n
Crown lawyer Hugo Wagner-Hiliau said the damage to the caravan, carport and nearby car and trailer amounted to about $107,000.<\/p>\n
In sentencing the woman, Judge Pecotic noted the fire was highly premeditated.<\/p>\n
This was shown, she said, by witness reports recording that Henderson had gone to a nearby petrol station to get a \u201cjerry can\u201d of petrol.<\/p>\n
Members of the public at the petrol station said the woman was announcing proudly what she was planning to do, the judge said.<\/p>\n
This was cemented by what Henderson told police upon arrest, the judge said, showing a \u201cclear intent\u201d to start the fire.<\/p>\n
The caravan was destroyed \u201cbeyond recognition\u201d, and with the carport completely destroyed, the risk of harm was high.<\/p>\n
The fire was when people were likely to be at home and it was lucky her children weren\u2019t asleep at the time, she said.<\/p>\n
Judge Pecotic sentenced the woman to 28 months in prison for arson. <\/p>\n
She was convicted and discharged for refusing to give blood, assault and careless driving in December, but was disqualified from driving for 12 months and a day.<\/p>\n
Ella Scott-Fleming has been a journalist for three years and previously worked at the Otago Daily Times, Gore Ensign and Metro Magazine. She has an interest in court and general reporting. She\u2019s currently based in Auckland covering justice-related stories.<\/p>\n
Join NZ Herald\u2019s Open Justice team for Case by Case<\/a>, a video and podcast series examining the disputes and decisions making headlines across New Zealand. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"She was also sentenced for charges relating to her driving off the road, flipping her car and crawling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":549081,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[53,51,41187,6383,31046,2079,2082,47836,2959,1345,48425,49154,6178,111,139,2551,69,6029,26227,5502,269664,24035,5161,3168,7806,213,3807,102,1354],"class_list":["post-549080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-arson","tag-auckland","tag-caravan","tag-driveway","tag-drunk","tag-fire","tag-for","tag-henderson","tag-high","tag-home","tag-longterm","tag-meant","tag-mother","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-night","tag-nz","tag-once","tag-parked","tag-partner","tag-saphron","tag-selling","tag-sentenced","tag-shared","tag-sign","tag-sports","tag-west","tag-with","tag-woman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549080","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=549080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549080\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/549081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}