Arson plans cooked up in graveyard

A group of young West Aucklanders who went on a church-burning spree hatched their plan in a graveyard.

Fuelled by a bit of alcohol, a hint of Satanism, and a love of an extreme form of heavy metal, James Wallace, 22, James Willy, 17, and Christopher Tolcher, 18, made molotov cocktails in Swanson Cemetery and plotted which churches to target.

First on the list was the chapel at Liston College, a Catholic boys' school, in Henderson.

Early on a Friday morning in August last year - at the start of a weekend where they would torch three churches - the trio threw the molotov cocktails at the chapel windows. One of the cocktails smashed the window and continued burning inside, causing extensive damage.

The group fled on foot and then jumped into a van parked nearby that Wallace had taken from his work without permission.

The next night, James Horton, 17, joined the group to firebomb Titirangi Baptist Church.

Later that night, Wallace, Horton and Tolcher firebombed Henderson Baptist Church on Great North Rd.

Three of the four - Wallace, Willy, and Horton - were convicted on arson charges and sentenced to 350 hours' community service last week in the Waitakere District Court. Tolcher received the same sentence on December 10 in the Auckland District Court.

The amount the youths will have to pay in reparation has yet to be decided.

Police said that when the four explained their actions they talked about having "anti-Establishment beliefs" and "dabbling in Satanism".

Wallace, who is lead singer in up-and-coming Auckland death metal band Ulcerate, did not return Weekend Herald calls yesterday.

But last year he told Supreme Brutality, a music 'zine, that: "I find my hatred for altruism is at the very core of everything I write about."

A church-burning trend began in the early 90s in Norway when bands from the black metal scene (an even more extreme version of death metal) were implicated in a spate of arsons.

In 1993, Count Grishnackh, a member of Norwegian black metal band Mayhem, was convicted of murdering the band's lead guitarist. He was suspected of starting the trend as a declaration of war against Norwegian society and Christianity.

Despite what the four West Aucklanders did, Doug Angove, pastoral care leader at Titirangi Baptist Church, is mentoring Wallace, Willy and Horton.

"They're really nice young guys but they got their heads together and did some dumb stuff."