Arsonist given two years' jail

The old multiplex cinema building may have been Rotorua's biggest eyesore but it was still wrong to set it alight, a judge has ruled.

Temotua Peter Marsden, 21, of no fixed abode, was sentenced in the Rotorua District Court to two years' jail after he admitted lighting a fire inside the abandoned central city building last January.

In passing sentence this week, Judge Phillip Cooper said the multiplex had been "an unsightly blot" on the city's landscape for years - as well as a regular haunt for street-kids - but that was no excuse for setting fire to it.

"In this [arson] case, there was no danger to any occupant, but there is always a danger for firefighters who deal with the blaze."

The court was told Marsden set fire to a pile of rubbish, the flames quickly spreading to the interior of the building.

He had entered the building through an insecure door just before 12am on January 24, lighting scraps of papers to find his way.

As he walked through the building he threw away the pieces of paper when they became too hot to hold. Police say a pile of rubbish was set alight in an upstairs area.

- ROTORUA DAILY POST