The agreed summary of facts said around 20 businesses are tenants of the park on Kitchener Rd in Waiuku.<\/p>\n
Future Post, which recycles plastic waste and turns it into fence posts and other products, has a fenced office and factory on the site as well as a \u201cdispatch yard\u201d at the end of a long driveway.<\/p>\n
The dispatch yard is used to store materials and at the time of the fire, there was also a \u201clarge pile of plastic rubbish\u201d in its car park as well as shipping containers.<\/p>\n
Breytenbach was living in a commercial building in the park, next to Future Post, and on November 24 of last year, around 10.30pm, he left home and walked to a nearby petrol station.<\/p>\n
He bought a lighter and two energy drinks, and CCTV footage showed him walking back to the car park carrying \u201cseveral pieces\u201d of cardboard.<\/p>\n
He unlocked the front gate of the yard, walked in, moved out of the sight of CCTV cameras and started a fire.<\/p>\n
He was captured, however, walking away from an area where smoke began to emanate and he looked back several times.<\/p>\n
Causing significant damage, the fire spread across the yard and up the hillside, catching on wooden pallets under the containers before engulfing them in fire.<\/p>\n
Future Post\u2019s plastic was left melted and destroyed.<\/p>\n
Twenty-seven Fire and Emergency New Zealand fire engines attended the scene. After an initial examination, the fire was deemed to be suspicious.<\/p>\n
A fire investigation later declared it had been lit with an \u201copen flame device\u201d such as a lighter.<\/p>\n
The summary of facts stated the amount lost by Future Post was likely more than $500,000 and the company lost about two days of production with the initial clean-up.<\/p>\n
Victims\u2019 losses<\/p>\n
None of the around $10,000 worth of equipment Shaun Maxwell kept in a container for his roofing business was salvageable.<\/p>\n
Leon Robbie lost around $31,000 worth of stored goods while Butler and Smith were leasing a container while they built a house.<\/p>\n
The furniture and personal belongings, worth around $73,000, included items with significant sentimental value such as photo albums covering their children\u2019s early years, weddings and memories of their deceased parents.<\/p>\n
Firefighters from across the Auckland region backed up Waiuku volunteers as they battled the blaze last November. Photo \/ Hayden Woodward<\/p>\n
They also lost their children\u2019s school medals, certificates and other sentimental gifts and mementos.<\/p>\n
Breytenbach later told police he didn\u2019t mean for the fire to happen and \u201csuggested\u201d it may have come from a cannabis cigarette butt he threw in the bin.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t know it was going to be that huge,\u201d he told police.<\/p>\n
In a recorded interview with police, he said despite walking to the scene with cardboard, he \u201cdidn\u2019t mean for it to happen\u201d.<\/p>\n
He explained he took the cardboard, placed it in a green bin and pulled out a bag of cannabis.<\/p>\n
He then lit a joint and put it out in the bin, where surrounding leaves caught alight, but he claimed to have no way to put it out.<\/p>\n
He left, throwing away the lighter, the summary said, and he didn\u2019t call for help as his phone was on low battery and he could already hear the sirens.<\/p>\n
\u2018Shock and disbelief\u2019<\/p>\n
Butler told the court she would \u201cnever forget\u201d getting a call from the owner of the storage facility asking if she had seen the news and informing her that \u201cnothing\u201d from the container had survived.<\/p>\n
They first felt \u201cshock and disbelief\u201d, she said, followed by numbness until they were able to take a look at what was left of their container.<\/p>\n
It was sitting at 45 degrees, and she said the disbelief soon turned into \u201cabsolute devastation\u201d as they filtered through the remains. <\/p>\n
\u201cTo say this was gut-wrenching and soul-destroying is an understatement.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some of the irreplaceable items lost included photo albums of her children that they could never show their grandchildren, as well as albums of their own childhoods.<\/p>\n
Also gone were photos of Smith\u2019s recently deceased parents, wedding photos, their children\u2019s first shoes, blankets, and teddies.<\/p>\n
She\u2019d lost a Pink Panther soft toy that her father gave her when she was 10 and gifted to her on her 40th birthday, saving up for months to send it from South Africa.<\/p>\n
She mourned the loss of the dolls that belonged to her, her grandmother, mother and daughter that would never be passed on to their grandchildren.<\/p>\n
Last year was particularly hard for the pair, as Smith lost both his parents, and the hand-me-downs \u201ccarefully chosen\u201d by the deceased were also gone.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey wanted to be a part of our future even though they knew they wouldn\u2019t be there in person.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou took that away from not only us, but from them too.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aftermath of the Waiuku fire. Photo \/ Michael Craig<\/p>\n
At a time when most people were getting excited for Christmas, she said they were throwing their decorations onto a \u201chuge pile of charred nothingness\u201d.<\/p>\n
They had nothing from their pasts, which she said had been erased by Breytenbach and the only consolation was that no one died or was injured by the fire.<\/p>\n
Judge Ngaroma Tahana also touched on the impact the fire had on the other victims, including Future Post founder Jerome Wenzlick.<\/p>\n
The judge said Future Post had suffered such financial pressure from the fire it had almost had to shut up shop.<\/p>\n