Court hears conflicting versions of events from pair accused of double arson near Nelson

Benjamin Durrant and Abigail Page have both pleaded not guilty to arson.

“Are you responsible for the mad things your partner does?”

That’s the question a defence lawyer has charged a jury with answering in a trial over two fires that took place near Nelson last year.

Two people are accused of deliberately lighting the fires, while firefighters were still trying to put out the major Pigeon Valley forest fire.

Benjamin Durrant, 35, and Abigail Page, 25, are jointly charged with arson – accused of intentionally setting vegetation alight on two separate occasions, at a time of heightened fire risk in the region.

Both have plead not guilty to the charges, but Durrant and Page have different accounts over what took place.

The Crown alleges the pair were responsible for a blaze that started on the side of the Moutere Highway on February 27, just hours after a state of emergency was lifted in Nelson and Tasman.

All residents in the Redwood Valley were evacuated until the fire was brought under control and helicopters had to be called away from the main Pigeon Valley fire to suppress it. A significant area of bush and pine plantation was destroyed.

Prosecutor Mark O’Donoghue told the jury how the pair were staying at a property on “the very street” the fire took place. The Crown alleges that they were travelling in Page’s silver Commodore on the highway, when she slowed her vehicle down to allow Durrant to stretch his arm out of the passenger’s window to ignite “the tinder dry vegetation” on the roadside.

Mr O’Donoghue said the jury would hear from a witness who says they saw a front passenger “holding their arm straight out of their window with their hand in the foliage for some reason”.

“When he overtook that vehicle in his truck, he looked down and saw two people in the car. The passenger was wearing a red beanie and looked as though they were avoiding being seen,” said Mr O’Donoghue.

The behaviour made the witness ask, “What are these guys up to?”

The Crown also alleges that one week later, Durrant lit another fire on the side of Pigeon Valley Road using a piece of torn black t-shirt.

Forestry workers managed to put the fire out and blocked the road with their vehicles. The defendants were eventually arrested after attempting to drive through a dry riverbed.

When questioned by police, the Crown says Durrant told the detective that he and Page were “home all day that day”. Later he said he remembered driving out to Motueka via the highway and then offered an explanation that the vehicle’s exhaust may have accidentally caused the fire.

Both Durrant and Page also told police when the second fire broke out the following Wednesday, they were out for a picnic when “they were cut off by angry loggers”.

However, Mr O’Donoghue said Page later changed her story and blamed Durrant for lighting both fires. Benjamin Durrant’s defence counsel, Steven Zindel, advised the jury to “keep an open mind” over the case against his client.

“Think about whether the evidence makes sense or maybe overegged… And think about that there might be other causes for the fire.”

Page’s lawyer, Robert Lithgow, said her case is that she didn’t know what she could do about Durrant’s actions at the time of the first fire and the second time “didn’t know it was happening at all”.

Mr Lithgow addressed the jury and said, “The critical question for you to answer at the end is, ‘Are you responsible for the mad things your partner does?'

“Does that make you as the partner criminally liable, as if you were in on it? As though you did it on purpose?”

The trial is expected to take two weeks and is being heard in the Wellington High Court.

The charges carry a maximum penalty of up to 14 years imprisonment.

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