Half a dozen youths were seen near Reefton's former convent before it was set alight. Photo / Tony Fortune
Reefton convent owner Sharon Day says she has received threats to her life from people claiming she torched the listed building.
The 110-year-old former Sisters of Mercy convent, a category two listed heritage building, was razed in an early morning fire on September 10. Police believe the fire
in the unoccupied building was suspicious.
Ms Day, whose Reefton Lifestyle Trust had applied for a demolition order on the building, said yesterday that she had received two letters written by local people to the Buller District Council.
"A man from Reefton says, in his words, he wants to hang, draw and quarter me. He is blatantly accusing me of burning it down. That's a threat and it's all got a bit ugly for me."
Ms Day said she had contacted her lawyers and would speak to police today.
"My lawyer said there's not a lot I can do because the threat is made against the Reefton Lifestyle Trust and not me personally."
The convent is owned by the trust, of which Ms Day is the sole member.
She said a second letter from a Reefton woman also accused her of torching the convent.
"Would I really spend all this money on a resource consent, engineers' reports, doing all of this, and bringing all this attention to it if I was going to burn the thing?
"It doesn't make any sense."
Ms Day said she had been aware some people were blaming her for the fire.
"I know what people are thinking. People are going to make up their minds and that's always been the Coast way but eventually they'll see that this was never an outcome I wanted."
Ms Day said she was in Australia when she received a phone call saying the convent had been razed.
"It was devastating. I felt like crying."
She arrived back in Christchurch on Monday and said she was confident police and insurance company investigations would exonerate her.
Reefton police still haven't any leads on who started the fire, although six youths were seen in the area about half an hour before the fire brigade was called at 3.50am.
NZPA
