Mt Roskill manslaughter trial: Jurors find woman guilty of fatal arson attempt

The woman, who cannot be identified, pleaded not guilty to manslaughter and arson. Photo / Michael Craig

An Auckland woman described by prosecutors as having a history of revenge plots has been found guilty of manslaughter after a bungled arson resulted in the death of her intellectually disabled friend.

Jurors in the High Court at Auckland returned the verdict after about six-and-a-half hours of deliberation today.

The defendant, who continues to have name suppression, observed the verdict over audio-visual feed because she is isolating at home with Covid-19. Justice Geoffrey Venning set a sentencing date for September.

Stephen Rhys Ewart's lifeless, charred body was found in the foetal position on the morning of December 9, 2017, outside a Mt Roskill flat where the defendant and her mother were in the process of being evicted. Sixteen milk bottles filled with petrol had been placed underneath the home.

Stephen Ewart died in December 2017 after allegedly accidentally setting himself alight. A woman is now on trial on manslaughter and arson charges. Photo / Supplied

Ewart, a 58-year-old described as having the mental capacity of a 12- to 13-year-old, had accidentally lit himself on fire in the process of committing arson for the defendant, Crown prosecutor David Johnstone told jurors during closing arguments this week.

While there was no physical evidence or CCTV footage placing the defendant at the scene, she had used Ewart just a year earlier to lodge a false assault allegation against a man who had helped her father divorce her mother, Johnstone alleged. And in 2008, she is suspected of having lit her then-boyfriend's car on fire as the relationship became acrimonious, he noted.

"It does give you an insight into what [her] tendencies were," Johnstone said, describing the defendant as already knowing through experience "just how coachable, just how susceptible Mr Ewart was".

"The fire in 2017 was far more likely to have been inspired by [the defendant] rather than Mr Ewart," he said.

The defendant opted not to testify at her trial, but prosecutors referred to her interview with police on the morning of Ewart's death. She told police that day that she had slept in until about 11am. But phone records indicated she was repeatedly calling Ewart by 8am, prosecutors noted.

A phone found by Ewart's body that morning had only one contact in it: "daughter". It was a term he would sometimes use to refer to the defendant.

But the woman had no motive to burn down the flat, defence lawyer Sam Wimsett argued, pointing out that she was at that point pregnant and had moved on to bigger things in her life. Ewart, he noted, was known to hold a grudge and may have acted independently out of fierce loyalty to his friend. But it wasn't at his client's urging or direction, Wimsett said.

He described the 2008 arson allegation as "obviously rubbish", noting that a fire inspector said at the time it was likely started by an electrical issue under the bonnet. He said jurors should also disregard the claim by her former boyfriend that the defendant told him: "Do you think it was a coincidence that your car caught fire?" No charges were ever filed, Wimsett pointed out.

Wimsett also denied that the accusations his client made against her father's friend in 2016 were false. The charges against the man were dropped after nearly a year, after GPS and mobile data showed he couldn't have been where the defendant said the assault took place.

Wimsett said the GPS data was not reliable and the man who was accused by the defendant was not called to testify at the current trial. Ewart was also involved in that case, telling police he witnessed the assault, and there's no reason not to believe him still, Wimsett said.

Authorities have underestimated Ewart's ability to act on his own accord, Wimsett also argued, pointing out that he completed year 12 in school and had obtained a learner's permit for driving. He had an interest in mechanics and was described by staff at his care home as both "extremely independent" and "very aggressive and easily angered".

"I can't tell you exactly why he did it," Wimsett said. "We know from the evidence he had an ability to hold a grudge and get mad about things."

His client, meanwhile, had called a plumber to the property just days earlier to fix a leaking toilet so she and her mum could get their bond returned as they moved out. That's not the act of someone planning to burn the place down, he said, adding that arson would only result in an insurance payout for the landlord while potentially making her friends in neighbouring flats homeless.

There was "quite simply nothing to gain" from such a scheme, he said.

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Police found nothing while executing a search warrant and also heard nothing incriminating after placing a listening device inside her home, Wimsett told jurors.

Justice Venning described the Crown's case today as depending largely on circumstantial evidence. Such cases, he said, are akin to a rope - with any one strand of rope perhaps not strong enough to hold a particular weight but multiple strands together able to do so. If all of the individual strands of evidence in such cases are believed, then a defendant is either guilty or the victim of an implausible and unlikely series of circumstances.

Jurors were able to reach their verdicts for both manslaughter and arson unanimously - albeit with only 10 in attendance. One juror was released from service upon raising an issue with the judge after the trial began last week. Another tested positive for Covid-19 today upon arrival at court and was sent home.