By EUGENE BINGHAM
As flames roared up the curtains, Simon Laing grappled in the flickering light for the pistol beside his bed.
Whoever was trying to burn the place down might be trying to kill him, he would later recall in court. Better grab the gun.
In the days before the blaze of May 12, 1992, at Firlawn House in Coromandel township, two suspicious fires on the property had set him on edge.
Mr Laing had taken to sleeping with an air pistol.
He burst outside to escape the inferno, but there was no ambush. Instead, the volunteer fire brigade siren wailed and neighbours ran to watch sadly the destruction of the 110-year-old homestead.
One carried a video camera. Ten years later, the videotape would be an exhibit for a hearing in the High Court at Hamilton.
Firlawn's owner, David Stemson, had sued AMP because it refused to pay out on his insurance claim.
Justice Grant Hammond would hear various claims about who was responsible for the Firlawn arson: Mr Stemson, Mr Laing, and a prominent local family.
After a trial stretching over five months, Justice Hammond named Mr Stemson as the perpetrator.
But last night Mr Stemson denied that he was involved, saying: "I'm not the arsonist. I was not there. I was not seen there. I did not do it."
Built in the 1880s, Firlawn House was an Edwardian-style villa that had fallen into disrepair.
Mr Stemson had plans to renovate the hotel and revive the sagging business.
Evidence at the trial showed that the business lost $25,000 in the year before the fire. On the day before the blaze, Mr Stemson's bank account had $112.91 in it.
Times were so tough that Mr Stemson went to the Social Welfare office in Coromandel to claim the dole.
Welfare officials would later come to be wary of Mr Stemson, especially after December, 2000, when he marched into the Thames office of Work and Income New Zealand and demanded a special-needs application form. He was charged with disorderly behaviour, but challenged the conviction.
In a landmark decision, Justice David Baragwanath said Mr Stemson was unnecessarily rude and offensive, but had only been vehemently exercising his right to freedom of expression.
Owning a Model A Ford and a housetruck, Mr Stemson was once welcomed as a charming, if eccentric, character.
But there were things about him that made some people uncomfortable.
Justice Hammond would rule that Mr Stemson had come to harbour a "deep-seated, even pathological, obsession" about the intentions of his former girlfriend and business partner, Libby Daniels, and her mother, Barbara Doyle, who once ran murder mystery weekends from the Brian Boru Hotel in Thames.
Mr Stemson came to own Firlawn through Ms Daniels, once a television presenter in Hong Kong.
In 1990, they owned half the property each. But their business and personal relationship deteriorated to a "rancorous" state and by June, 1991, he had bought her out.
The animosity continued. About two weeks before the fire, Ms Daniels lodged a caveat against the title to Firlawn.
About 10 days before the blaze, Mr Stemson renewed his fire insurance.
No sooner had the flames been doused than people were beginning to assume the fire was suspicious.
Police investigated. AMP called in a private investigator, former policeman Kevin Byrne, who would spend 10 years on the case.
Mr Byrne's findings led AMP to reject Mr Stemson's claim.
At the trial, Justice Hammond heard how over the years Mr Stemson had implicated the Doyles.
In court, Mr Stemson blamed the fire on Mr Laing, a one-time friend who was staying at Firlawn in return for doing odd jobs.
Justice Hammond absolved the Doyles and Mr Laing of any blame. He accepted Mr Laing's version of what happened that night.
Mr Laing, a self-confessed alcoholic with a criminal past, said he was asleep when a molotov cocktail smashed through his bedroom window.
He had slept in that particular room only because Mr Stemson told him to, leading him to believe that Mr Stemson may have been trying to kill him, he told the court.
Justice Hammond found that Mr Stemson was responsible for at least one of the two fires on the property before the hotel arson.
And he found that Mr Stemson had interfered with witnesses.
He dismissed Mr Stemson's alibi that he was in Auckland, saying that he had enough time to drive down to Coromandel and back.
"I am satisfied that Mr Stemson lit the fire at Firlawn himself," said Justice Hammond's reserved judgment.
"The evidence is clear and convincing. Indeed, if this had been a criminal trial, I would have convicted Mr Stemson."
His comments have caused police to reactivate their investigation. Detective Inspector Peter Devoy of Hamilton police said no one had been charged with the arson.
"But we will be reviewing the file in light of the evidence at the civil court," he said.
A "tragically incensed" Mr Stemson attacked the judgement as a "diabolical concoction".
He said the judge did not address issues raised by his lawyer's submissions.
He said he knew who lit the fire, but did not have the evidence to prove it.
To name the perpetrator would risk a defamation case.
Mr Stemson, now believed to be living in Auckland, said the judge had wrongly accepted the insurance company's "emotive scenario".
He plans to appeal.
For Barbara Doyle, the judgment was a welcome relief.
It was the end of a long saga, said Ms Doyle, who left the Brian Boru after being declared a bankrupt and now runs her murder mystery weekends from the backpackers' hostel next door to the pub.
She is even thinking of turning the Firlawn story into one of her murder mysteries.
And the Firlawn? It's still owned by Mr Stemson. But it is in such a bad state locals have another name for it: the Forlorn.
- Additional reporting: John Andrews
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