Sentencing for arsonist Corena Flavell, who torched City Garden Lodge backpackers in Parnell. Video / Jason Dorday
Corena Tangi Flavell was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in jail for arson at a historic Auckland lodge.
Judge David Sharp highlighted Flavell’s high risk of reoffending due to her drug and alcohol issues.
The building was extensively damaged and later demolished.
A resident at a historic $4m Auckland lodge who started a massive blaze - resulting in 6m high flames and billowing smoke seen for kilometres - had made her intentions quite clear that day.
“I’m going to burn the house down,” Corena Tangi Flavell told a flatmate on the afternoon of Sunday, April 7, last year.
Not long later, as she finished packing up her belongings and prepared to leave the City Garden Lodge in Parnell, she made good on the threat.
Flavell, 35, has since pleaded guilty to arson, meaning unpublished details of the odd case can now be revealed.
She faced up to 14 years imprisonment as she appeared in Auckland District Court today for sentencing.
Judge David Sharp ordered a sentence of two-and-a-half years imprisonment, noting she appeared genuinely apologetic but there was also a high risk of reoffending due to her entrenched drug and alcohol issues.
Corena Flavell appears for sentencing in Auckland District Court after pleading guilty to the arson of a Parnell lodge that was destroyed in the April 2024 fire. Photo / Jason Dorday
“I have to impose a sentence that will mean you know you can’t do things like this,” the judge said.
“It is a matter of great fortune that no one was killed.
Flavell was a long-term resident at the 17-bedroom lodge, which changed from a tourist stay to emergency accommodation around 2022 and later switched to transitional accommodation.
The defendant lived in one of nine bedrooms on the upper floor of the two-storey wooden home.
The agreed summary of facts for the case don’t state what caused her to carry out the arson, but defence lawyer Charles Harvey told the judge today that she had been a heavy user at the time of methamphetamine, alcohol and psychedelic drug DMT.
It was a combination that has affected her memory of that night and her ability at the time to make “rational and safe decision”, he said, adding that it is difficult to imagine her actions were not significantly impaired.
The summary of facts states about 4.09pm that day, Flavell began removing property from her room and placing it on a settee “directly outside her room in preparation to leave the building”.
Eighteen minutes later she had gotten dressed, finished removing the property and was preparing to leave.
She held a cigarette lighter in her hand.
“After Ms Flavell had removed the items of property from her room, she spread a flammable accelerant onto items remaining in the room and then set the items on fire before hurriedly leaving,” documents state.
“Ms Flavell picked up the items from the settee, but she was in such a rush to leave the building that she did not stop to pick up one of the items that she had dropped and she left other items behind.
A police guard outside City Garden Lodge on St Georges Bay Road in Parnell in April 2024. Photo / Hayden Woodward
“Just over one minute after Ms Flavell rushed from her room, smoke could be seen emanating out of her room.”
There were up to 10 residents inside the building when she set the fire, including one who was sleeping in a room adjacent to Flavell‘s.
All managed to escape but some were injured, the judge noted today, referring to victim impact statements that were not read aloud.
The blaze had been set close to a door to a fire escape. Additionally, the building had no sprinkler system and few extinguishers, police noted.
Fellow resident Benjamin Rees, who said he was homeless before Work and Income sent him to live at the property, described to RNZ last year how he had been napping when he awoke to a voice on the stairwell saying “set fire to the place” and noticed smoke seeping in through his door.
A fire started by Corena Flavell destroyed the Parnell lodge where she was living. Photo / Frank Mair
“So I grabbed a couple of items,” he said. “I grabbed my guitar and a couple of bags, threw them out the window, jumped onto that [roof], threw my stuff into the tree, jumped into the tree and onto the ground.”
Sixteen fire crews were called to the scene, but although they eventually got the fire under control, it was to no avail. The extensively damaged property was later demolished.
‘Harmful influences’
Flavell pleaded guilty to arson, which carries a maximum possible sentence of 14 years imprisonment, five days prior to her scheduled trial earlier this year.
She also pleaded guilty to an unrelated theft charge in which she helped take an estimated $7000 worth of items that had been in bags in front of a home. Most of the items were never recovered.
Fire and Emergency attend the fire at the City Garden Lodge in Parnell. Photo / Frank Mair
Both sides agreed a starting point of between three-and-a-half and four years imprisonment was appropriate. The defence argued that the judge should take into account that the building was old and didn’t have sprinklers, which would have likely limited the damage.
Harvey noted that the one silver lining of the incident is that his client is “now quite cognisant of the tangible impact” her addiction issues have had on her life and “her motivation to find an alternative path in life has crystallised”. He described the sentencing as “a turning point, hopefully, for her and her lifestyle”.
The judge agreed that her addiction issues had a direct impact on her offending that day. He declined to go into detail but also agreed that her background, including exposure to drugs and alcohol at a young age, would have likely played a part in her later addictions.
“It’s not difficult to tell she’s had some influences in her life that have been difficult and very harmful for her,” he said.
“But it still doesn’t mean that you can do this sort of thing.”
PARNELL
Crown prosecutor Annabelle Wilson acknowledged the futility of having Flavell pay back her victims.
But she asked that he impose a nominal amount, if only out of symbolism “to reflect the loss to the victims”.
The judge reluctantly declined.
“I’m in the unfortunate position of not being able to provide reparation to people who lost significantly,” Judge Sharp said, explaining that there was no way Flavell would have the means to repay.
The judge ordered a starting point of four years imprisonment, reflecting the fact there were others in the lodge who were put in danger. He increased the sentence by two months for the theft but then allowed reductions of five months for her guilty pleas, nine months for the role addiction played in her offending, two months for remorse and four months for what he described as culturally significant factors.
He noted that the defendant’s risk of re-offending will be reduced if she gets a handle on her addictions.
“You will be in front of the Parole Board,” he advised the defendant. “Hopefully, you can learn from the things that are in the [culture and background report] to avoid any further repetition of behaviours as dangerous as this.”
Neighbours concerned
The lodge was owned by couple Suresh and Seema Chatly, who own multiple motels throughout Auckland.
They had received more than $22 million in emergency housing grants at the time of the fire, the Herald previously reported.
Fire investigators at the scene of a large fire at City Garden Lodge, 25 St Georges Bay Road Parnell with inset of Seema and Suresh Chatly.
Suresh Chatly previously said they changed strategy from tourist accommodation to emergency housing during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“It was more of a survival to pay the mortgage,” he said of the decision.
It didn’t come without some controversy in the neighbourhood.
One neighbour told the Herald last year that she had received threats and witnessed dangerous behaviour.
For the past year, she said, she had complained to the owners “about three times a week”.
Neither the owners nor any of the former tenants attended today’s hearing. The courtroom gallery was mostly empty except for Flavell’s father and the media.
Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.
Sign up to The Daily H, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
