An Australian fire investigator "with vast experience'' is the only defence witness in the trial of an Alexandra man accused of deliberately setting fire to his former workplace, more than two and a-half years ago.
Aaron Gourlay (43) denies the arson of Wastebusters Recycling Centre on September 3, 2015. He also denies intentionally setting fire to three cars belonging to two former workmates and his former partner and intentionally damaging the tyres on two other cars.
Gourlay's trial before Judge Kevin Phillips and a jury in the Dunedin District Court enters its seventh day of hearing today when Australian fire consultant Ross Brogan, a lecturer at Charles Sturt University, gives evidence.
After evidence from the last 48 witnesses called by Crown counsel Craig Power, the jury was told Gourlay's defence was that "we have the wrong man''.
It was not Gourlay who set fire to the cars and the Wastebusters Recycling Centre and who damaged two other cars, defence counsel Deborah Henderson said, although he did not question that Wastebusters and the three cars were damaged by fire.
But the jurors could not be sure the fires had been deliberately lit and, even if they were sure, the evidence did not prove it was Gourlay who did it, Mrs Henderson said.
Certified fire investigator Mr Brogan would give evidence that, due to the number of electrical appliances and cords at Wastebusters and the presence of rats at the site, a qualified electrician or electrical engineer should have checked for any evidence of an electrical fault causing the fire. Without that evidence, it was "impossible'' to exclude those factors as causes of the fire, Mr Brogan would say.
And he would question whether, in the absence of such evidence and any identified ignition source, the cause of the fire could be established, Mrs Henderson told the jurors.
A Crown witness, New Zealand specialist fire investigator Catherine Trevathan, gave evidence the Wastebusters blaze was caused by someone lighting newspaper and spray cans, doused with petrol, in a tyre under one corner of a portable office building.
Ms Trevathan discounted electrical appliances, cables and multiboxes and rats as possible causes. She had not believed evidence from an electrician or an electrical engineer would have given greater insight and information than she had about what caused the fire.
But she agreed with defence counsel Adriana Pinnock that, in hindsight, and from what she now knew, she probably would have called in an electrical specialist.
