Paranoid, drugged arsonist who lit apartment tower on fire then saved residents jailed

Far North man Joshua Skinner set fire to this two-storey apartment block in Nixon St, Hamilton, in January 2017. He has now been jailed for three years and 10 months. Photo / Belinda Feek

A man who set fire to a two-storey apartment block, then went on to rescue the occupants, was “out of his mind” and likely in a drug-induced psychosis at the time.

For reasons which only Joshua David Norman Skinner will know, he developed a dislike that turned to a “paranoid obsession” with one of his neighbours, ultimately leading to him to set the outside of the apartment building alight just before midnight on January 3, 2017.

Skinner, from Oromahoe in the Far North, had been visiting his sister in Hamilton, staying with her in a house next to the two-storey apartment block. A family was living in the lower storey.

After his partner bought him firelighters from The Warehouse, which she claimed was done “under duress”, he went to the apartment under the cover of darkness and lit two fires, before running back and telling his sister what he’d done.

He then ran to the family living downstairs to “save” them.

The upper storey became completely engulfed in flames and spread downstairs, destroying the building.

When spoken to by police, Skinner denied lighting the fires, instead saying there was a conspiracy against him.

In sentencing Skinner on one charge of arson following a jury trial in the Hamilton District Court, Judge Paul Mabey told the 34-year-old he faced an “insurmountable case at trial”.

“You had no hope of defending this charge.

“[Defence counsel] Mr [Glen] Prentice put up a brave effort on your behalf and you should thank him for that, but he had very little to work with.

“You were always going to be convicted.”

At trial, Skinner suggested the neighbour was a drug dealer and that perhaps the blaze was lit by some of his associates.

Judge Mabey told him he had no reason not to like his neighbour and couldn’t help but notice the irony of his drug dealing theory, as Skinner himself was a drug user and knew “all about drug dealing”.

“There is no suggestion that you were unfit for trial or were insane, but you were exhibiting symptoms which are typical of drug-induced psychosis and paranoia, short of insanity.

“In other words, Mr Skinner, you were out of your mind in that sense. You were just running on instinct driven by irrational and paranoid beliefs.”

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In Skinner’s defence, Prentice submitted the man’s drug addiction stemmed from his background and he began using drugs as a teenager, leading to a “reduced moral culpability”.

“You cannot be sentenced as a cold-hearted, cold-blooded arsonist,” the judge told him.

“You were not acting as a normal person in the sense that you premeditated a callous crime, risking the lives of others for no profit or for any gain.”

Prentice asked for a 10 to 15 per cent discount for matters in his section 27 cultural report.

Judge Mabey agreed, adopting 15 per cent and reducing his starting point from four and a half years’ imprisonment to three years and 10 months.