Maya Moore (right) denies charges relating to fires at two properties in Wards Line, near Greytown, in October 2022. The fires destroyed both houses on the properties. Photos/ Supplied.
A farmer says he feared he was under attack after being woken by a fire in the early hours of the morning.
Farmer David Morrison told the Wellington District Court how he had leapt from the bed of his Wards Line home, near Greytown, after his partner, Sandra Rynhart, yelled out that there was a fire.
He was giving evidence at the trial of Maya Moore, who had leased some land from him and is accused of lighting fires at two neighbouring properties on October 11, 2022.
Moore worked for Morrison’s neighbour Gerry Van Dalen, and lived in a sleepout at his property.
Both Morrison and Van Dalen’s properties were extensively damaged, with repairs costing $2 million.
Morrison told the court he’d initially thought a neighbour’s place was on fire, but after stepping outside, he saw a fire had been set by his front door. A second fire was burning up the side of the house and a recently renovated sleepout was also on fire.
The fires were hot and spreading quickly, he said, explaining that he’d never seen anything like that before and he “thought we were under attack”.
Escaping the house, the couple could only stand outside and watch their wooden villa burn as they waited for firefighters to arrive, after a garden hose was burnt and the water pump failed.
At about the same time, Van Dalen was woken by a strange noise, which he realised was a fire alarm. He woke his wife, Jenny, and, unsure what was going on, opened the front door to have the flames come flying in, singeing his eyebrows.
The couple escaped through the French doors on to the deck.
Once outside, Van Dalen realised that his implement shed and haybarn were also alight. A 750-litre fuel tank was also destroyed that night.
He’d checked the sleepout, but Moore wasn’t there.
Keen to move his car away from the house, he’d realised his car keys were inside and had to get his tractor to move it.
His wife couldn’t get the phone to work, so she flagged down a passing motorist to call the fire brigade, before walking up to make sure Morrison and Rynhart were okay.
Firefighters with decades of experience earlier told the court the fires they were called to at 3.44am were unprecedented in their size and scale. One told the court: “It was nuts.”
As daylight broke, it became clear that four buildings had been destroyed and one was partially destroyed. Two tyres, stuffed with fabric, were found on the deck outside the sleepout but weren’t lit. A bucket of accelerant sat nearby.
The two couples gave evidence at Moore’s jury trial. Moore denies nine charges, including five of arson and one of attempted arson. She also denies a charge of resisting arrest and possession of a rifle and 133 rounds of .22 calibre ammunition.
The 50-year-old is accused of taking tyres from the silage pit at the Van Dalen’s farm, stuffing fabric inside them, placing a flammable liquid onto the fabric, then leaving them outside buildings at the two properties and lighting them.
Moore isn’t present in the courtroom, but lawyer Janine Bonifant is helping the court, addressing the jury and cross-examining witnesses.
The court heard Moore, an American, told Morrison she’d arrived in New Zealand to work as a civil engineer during the Christchurch rebuild.
By mid-2022, Moore was living and working at the Van Dalen’s farm and leasing land from Morrison and Rynhart to graze her small herd of cattle.
The Crown’s case is that Moore lit the fires because she was upset at losing her job at the Van Dalen’s and unhappy with the lease arrangement for her cattle.
Both couples told the court they got on well and hadn’t had problems with anyone in the area other than Moore.
Gerry Van Dalen told the court a falling out occurred because Moore refused to sign an employment contract, agreeing instead to invoice them for the part-time work she did, which included odd jobs and milking.
The couple agreed, even providing Moore with an invoice book.
But the court heard, despite repeated requests, Moore refused to submit her invoices.
By the end of August, Van Dalen had lost patience and told Moore that, from the next day, September 1, she was no longer working for them.
He said he thought Moore was disappointed, but she didn’t show up to work again. But Moore continued to stay at their sleepout until the fires, during which time there was tension.
Asked by prosecutor Anslem Williams to give an example of the tension, Jenny Van Dalen said if she walked outside, Moore would close the curtains of the sleepout and lock the door, saying it was hard to have contact with her.
Jenny Van Dalen said she’d increasingly felt intimidated and unsafe around Moore; they told her she could no longer come into the house to use the bathroom and laundry facilities.
The day before the fire, Gerry Van Dalen told the court, he had spoken to Moore telling her that the arrangement wasn’t working, the relationship wasn’t great, there was no future, and she should move on.
The night Moore’s car wasn’t outside the sleepout, which was unusual.
Asked to describe the grazing arrangement Morrison and Moore had agreed on for her small herd of cattle, Morrison said initially it had worked well. Moore leased two fenced paddocks on their property, paying $3500 in cash for a year.
But he said it soured after about four months when Moore refused to stop grazing her stock on land she wasn’t leasing and took up space in the hayshed she wasn’t supposed to be using.
She’s also padlocked the gate to stop beekeepers from walking across her land to check their hives.
The court heard efforts to resolve matters amicably had failed, and lawyers had been called in. When Morrison padlocked gates to stop Moore from putting stock on his land, Moore removed them and put up electric fencing.
In turn, Morrison cut the padlocks Moore had put on the gates of the paddocks she leased to allow beekeepers access to the bee hives.
Under cross-examination from Bonifant, the four accepted that Moore had never made direct threats against them, and they hadn’t seen her on their properties on the night of the fire.
Gerry Van Dalen agreed he’d had no problems with her work, other than her refusal to invoice him.
The court also heard that the following morning, Moore’s stock was still in the paddocks.
At the end of the Crown case on Tuesday, Judge Peter Hobbs told the jury there would be no defence evidence.
He reiterated, again, to the jury, that there was no obligation on the defendant to give or call evidence, explaining that the burden of proof lay with the Crown.
On Wednesday, the jury will begin to hear closing addresses.
Catherine Hutton is an Open Justice reporter, based in Wellington. She has worked as a journalist for 20 years, including at the Waikato Times and RNZ. Most recently she was working as a media adviser at the Ministry of Justice.