Palmerston North teen gets home detention after lighting fatal fire in woman’s bedroom

The woman was taken to hospital where she died after suffering smoke inhalation and burns to more than 70% of her body.

The son of a woman whose room was set alight by a then 12-year-old boy while she slept has confronted her killer in court this morning.

“Not only did you take her from us, but you took her in one of the cruellest ways imaginable and in a way that meant I couldn’t say goodbye properly,” the man said in a statement, read by the court’s victim adviser.

“I waited helplessly for hours at the hospital while Mum battled alone for her life.

The man said that the fire even destroyed all the memories he had of his mother, including photos, possessions and his childhood home, leaving him only with a partially burned shopping list written in her handwriting.

“It’s one of the few cherished possessions I was able to salvage from the ruins of Mum’s house.

“You left me with nothing, you took everything.”

The person he has to blame for his mother’s death was 12 when the fire was lit.

Five years later, that boy stood in court as a 17-year-old to face his victim’s family after pleading guilty to manslaughter earlier this year.

He hung his head for most of today’s sentencing at the High Court at Palmerston North, and one of his lawyers was granted permission to sit beside him in the dock.

Justice Andru Isac sentenced the teen in the High Court at Palmerston North this morning. Photo / Martin du Ruyter

Justice Isac said that there was an element of premeditation to the crime, in that the boy had experimented by lighting tissues on fire before pouring petrol around the woman’s room.

However, he viewed his actions as those of a “panicked child”.

“I think on the night you lit the fire, you didn’t mean to hurt her, but you wanted to get away from that house and not go back there.”

Justice Isac said that the teen had had a tough life as a young person.

“They’re the sorts of things no child should ever have to go through.

“Bad childhood experiences make it more difficult for a young person to make good decisions; their actions are less blameworthy than someone who has a perfect home life and goes on to commit an offence.”

Justice Isac sentenced the teen to 12 months home detention after applying discounts for guilty pleas, his young age and his childhood background.

“You’re now a very different young man than the child who committed this terrible crime.”

Family of the woman, including her son, stormed from the courtroom as Justice Isac delivered his sentence.

‘You ran away’

The boy’s name and that of the victim are suppressed, as is their relationship to one another, but they were living at the Palmerston North address in late 2020.

According to the summary of facts, the pair had a disagreement earlier in the evening that lasted several hours, but had gone to bed by 9pm.

However, just before midnight, the boy took a petrol canister from the woman’s garden shed, before pouring it on clothing at the foot of the woman’s bed while she slept.

The boy then ignited the petrol with a piece of burning paper before leaving the room and closing the door behind him.

The summary of facts states that the boy then ran to a friend’s house, where he told the family that there was a fire at the address.

The High Court sat at the Palmerston North District Court this morning. Photo/Jeremy Wilkinson

Meanwhile, the woman awoke to find her bedroom engulfed in flames.

The woman smashed her bedroom window and managed to climb out and was found on her front lawn with significant burns and cuts.

She asked people who were first on the scene to check if the boy was still inside the house.

The woman was then taken to Palmerston North Hospital with burns to more than 70% of her body, lacerations to her hands, as well as fire-inhalation injuries.

She died the next morning.

“Her last words were making sure you were out and safe, but you wouldn’t know that because you ran away,” the woman’s son said in his victim impact statement.

“I live with the guilt of not being able to protect my mum from you, the guilt of not knowing I needed to protect her from you... .”

Multiple family members of the woman had written victim impact statements to read to the court, but all of them opted to have them read on their behalf.

‘This case is a tragedy’

The teenager’s lawyer, Nicola Graham, told the court that in 22 years as a lawyer, her client’s background was the worst she had ever seen.

Crown prosecutor Ben Vanderkolk stressed that the downgraded charge was not the result of a plea deal. Photo / Mark Mitchell

“This case is a tragedy,” she told the court.

“This case is also a tragedy for [the teen] who will forever live with the knowledge of what happened.

“He was a child at the time this happened.”

Graham said that the teen’s background, his guilty plea, and his young age should all factor into significant discounts.

“The sad irony of this case is that it has markedly improved his life trajectory,” she said.

The teen was originally charged with murder in 2022 and pleaded not guilty; however, in February this year, the Crown downgraded the charge to manslaughter, and he pleaded guilty.

Crown prosecutor Ben Vanderkolk stressed that the change in charge was not the result of a plea arrangement, which is where prosecutors will downgrade a charge in exchange for a guilty plea.

“He was charged with murder at the outset, and following the process, much more became known about him when the original charging decisions were made,” he said.

“I need to stress that this was not a plea arrangement.”

Jeremy Wilkinson is an Open Justice reporter based in Manawatū covering courts and justice issues with an interest in tribunals. He has been a journalist for nearly a decade and has worked for NZME since 2022.