The Hamilton woman, listed as a factory worker in court documents, was jailed for 22 months and one week on one charge of arson in the Hamilton District Court recently after not being able to find a suitable home detention address.
‘Two bottles of wine. Four hours’
Newport was renting a property on Fifth Ave, Enderley on May 9 last year.
Some time between 3pm and 4pm, she went to a supermarket and bought two bottles of wine, and drank them over the next three to four hours.
As she did, she danced outside in the rain and listened to music before walking to the Z Energy Service station to get Zig-zag papers and returning home again.
She then turned on her electric stove and put a tea towel on the element.
Newport told police she couldn’t sustain a fire that way, so she went out to her car, which was parked just metres away, and got a gas torch.
She went back inside and used the torch to set fire to her bedroom mattress before heading into the lounge and lighting her couch cushions on fire.
Newport then grabbed some paper bags and used them to stoke a fire inside her car before leaving on foot.
The fire caused between $350,000 and $400,000 worth of damage and a loss of income of about $20,000. It was unclear what the insurance excess would be.
‘Eccentric or unusual behaviour’
Her counsel, Gerard Walsh, organised a variety of specialist reports canvassing her mental health and personal circumstances, most of which were suppressed by Judge Philip Crayton.
However, Walsh said that although she didn’t have a property available for home detention, he asked that she be granted leave to apply at a later date.
Judge Crayton said any sentence he imposed would “need to ensure the safety and protection going forward of the community”.
“On its face, approaching the matter logically, this offending has little by way of explanation and indeed is quite out of the blue and illogical, save and accept that it coincides with what would appear to be some sort of mental health crisis.”
Newport attended a restorative justice conference where she gave “a clear and unreserved apology”.
The judge added that she was also now “having to come to terms with what is termed your ‘spirituality’”.
What appeared to have underpinned and tipped her behaviour from “eccentric or unusual to criminal appears to have been the significant consumption of a large amount of alcohol”.
“That does not mitigate but it explains. It is also something which you recognise and, of course, because you recognise it, you need to do something about it.”
After taking a starting point of three years and six months, he applied credits for her early guilty plea, in September last year, attending Restorative Justice, and the contents of her mental health and Section 27 cultural report, before taking the option of sending her to jail.
“I would have wished to commute this sentence to home detention had there been an address but unfortunately there was not and there is no alternative available to reflect the serious offending that’s occurred here.
“The effect of this offending has fortunately, in regards to impact on the individuals involved, not had dramatic consequences but in relation to the financial cost to the insurance company.”
He granted her leave to apply for home detention.
Belinda Feek is an Open Justice reporter based in Waikato. She has worked at NZME for nine years and has been a journalist for 20.
