New Zealander Christopher Robinson denied arson after his home burned to the ground in Kerikeri.
Stuff reported that after the fire in 2012, a year later the insurance fire investigator told a court case looking into the fire that “he believed” the fire had been started by Robinson, despite the fact that he and his wife were away at the time. The investigator’s theory was that the fire was started remotely by Robinson using a Macbook Pro laptop to log into an Acer PC at the house, which was connected “perhaps wirelessly” to a Brother inkjet printer. He alleged that Robinson then sent a print command to the printer, which set off a chain of events.
The theory the investigator put forward was that the paper sheet for the printer was “sellotaped to a piece of string which was attached to a switch” and that “when the string pulled the switch, it completed a circuit that included a 12-volt battery and a length of high-resistance wire like the ones that glow inside your toaster”.
Continuing, the investigator said: ”The wire was wrapped around the heads of a few matches, so when it got hot the matches ignited and set fire to additional flammable material nearby, and then the fire took hold through the entire mansion, with the assistance of some sort of accelerant such as petrol, which had been poured about the place.”
He and a colleague demonstrated the method on a video made for the court, and he then alleged that Robinson “scrubbed the remote login software from his computer, then got on with his day”. Robinson told Stuff that “almost everything” the investigator had said was “nonsense”, and that in fact his house was under insured when it “burnt down” which would make him a very poor arsonist.
The court had acquitted him of the arson charges, and found that despite the insurance company’s allegations, he was not in “serious financial difficulty before the fire”. Stuff commented that “aside from the printer-ignition theory there’s blackmail and bankruptcy, and allegations of conspiracy. There’s a side-plot involving poisoned land. The IRA and a fake Irish priest make cameo appearances. It’s a story whose various interpretations differ so drastically that someone, somewhere, must have told some lies”.