This Kaikohe house destroyed by arson on Saturday belonged to convicted Northland farmer Allan Titford, who is serving 24 years in jail for a raft of offences.
This Kaikohe house destroyed by arson on Saturday belonged to convicted Northland farmer Allan Titford, who is serving 24 years in jail for a raft of offences.
A house destroyed by arson in Kaikohe belonged to convicted Northland farmer Allan Titford, who is serving 24-year prison sentence for a raft of offences, including rape and assaulting children with weapons, perjury, obstructing justice, arson and recklessly discharging a firearm.
It’s the third home owned by Titford that hasbeen burned to the ground, including one which went up in flames in 1992 on his Maunganui Bluff property which he was found guilty of setting alight himself - he initially blamed the blaze on Te Roroa hapū members after a dispute over the land.
Police are treating the burning of Titford’s house, on Monument Rd on August 12, as the result of an arson attack. The alarm was raised at 6.30pm, and fire appliances from Kaikohe, Kerikeri and Kawakawa attended the blaze.
They spent more than three hours putting out the flames. The historic rental property was unoccupied at the time of the fire, with the previous tenants understood to have left several weeks ago.
Police said as the investigation into the fire is ongoing, they are unable to go into further detail.
Allan Titford during his High Court sentencing on 39 charges, principally rape and assaulting children with weapons, perjury, obstructing justice, arson and recklessly discharging a firearm.
“We are asking for the public’s help with our investigation,” police said. “Anyone who was in the Monument Rd area last Saturday between 5pm-8pm and saw anything suspicious is asked to contact police via our 105 phone service or online at www.police.govt.nz/use-105, using ‘Update Report’. Please reference file number 230813/7124.”
Information can also be provided anonymously via Crime Stoppers on 0800 555 111.
A member of Titford’s family contacted the Northern Advocate saying the Monument Rd house was Allan Titford’s and is the third house he has owned that has been destroyed by fire, along with two others on his former Maunganui Bluff property in the 1990s.
“This house was the headquarters for World War II in Northland. Mrs Orr built it and the military commandeered it for World War II. This house is significant to the history of Northland and must be remembered,” the family member said.
She said the house was not insured.
Titford first rose to national prominence in the late 1980s and early 1990s as he battled the Crown over a farm he owned at Maunganui Bluff.
Allan Titford stands in the ruins of the 1992 fire that he lit, but blamed Te Roroa members for.
The Waitangi Tribunal recommended the farm be returned to local iwi, sparking a long-running dispute between Titford, the Crown and Māori. In July 1992, his home on the property burned down and Titford blamed members of Te Roroa for the blaze, but he was later found guilty of lighting the fire himself.
In 2013, Titford was jailed for 24 years after being found guilty of 39 charges - sexual offending against his former wife, violence against her and their children, fraud, threatening to kill, arson, perjury and firearms charges. He was acquitted of 14 charges including rape, arson and threatening to kill.
The farmer went to the Appeal Court in 2017 on a generic ground of miscarriage of justice, including that because he was unfit to stand trial, he was deprived of his right to present his defence because he had inadequate time to instruct counsel before trial. He appealed against his sentence on the grounds it was manifestly excessive. Two psychiatrists assessed Titford as suffering from “querulous paranoia”, which meant he saw conspiracies in many places.
He lost that appeal and took his case to the Supreme Court, where he applied for an extension of the time limit to file another appeal against the conviction and sentence to the Supreme Court, arguing there was a miscarriage of justice. But the Supreme Court - the highest court in the country - rejected his application.
Despite both appeals being lost, Titford has a group of supporters who believe the entire case was a conspiracy against the farmer.
