Girl tells of recording father's talk about fire

A 16-year-old girl told a jury yesterday of taping a conversation with her father about the torching of her mother's house.

Ranginui Andrews said that initially she told police she was the person who had set fire to her mother's property in Helvetia Rd, Pukekohe, last June.

But she told a jury in the High Court at Auckland yesterday that her statement was not true and she said it only to protect her father, George Andrews, who had split with her mother, Elizabeth Kino, in acrimonious circumstances.

She said her father had told her that a 16-year-old would not get into trouble.

But Miss Andrews told the jury that when she was charged with arson, she realised how "dumb" she had been to take the blame.

She said she asked her father to own up to lighting the fire, but he refused.

After her lawyer and her mother spoke to police, she agreed to secretly tape a conversation with her father about the fire.

The Crown, represented by Bruce Northwood, says Andrews all but admits on the tape to starting the fire. Andrews, aged 41, of Pukekohe, is accused of starting the blaze under the house, causing serious damage.

He is also accused of earlier getting his daughter to set fire to her mother's taxi and getting her to set alight to a curtain in her mother's home, knowing the property was likely to be damaged.

He faces a further charge of attempting to pervert the course of justice by counselling Ranginui to lie about her knowledge of the arsons or attempted arson, or her involvement in them, or both, on the tape.

The girl told the court that her father had used a combination of bribes, threats and violence to get her to set fire to the van and the curtain.

But she said she had had nothing to do with the fire under the house.

The van and curtain incidents have been dealt with in the Youth Court, along with a burglary charge. The charge of setting fire to her mother's house was withdrawn.

Defence lawyer Richard Blackwood said Andrews denied asking his daughter to set fire to anything.

Miss Andrews agreed that she had been thrown out of her mother's house after arranging for the property to be burgled.

But she denied a suggestion from Mr Blackwood that the fires were her way of getting back at her mother for throwing her out.

Asked by Mr Blackwood why she thought her father needed "protecting," she said because, in another conversation, he had admitted starting the house fire.

The trial, before Justice John Priestley, continues today.