KEY POINTS:
Police have arrested and charged a man with setting mantraps after a series of arsons in Christchurch since the weekend.
Two cricket clubs in Hagley Park were burgled early last Saturday, with one set on fire and the other left filling with gas after intruders allegedly opened LPG cylinders.
The burglary and arson of a church and school hall in suburban Addington early on Tuesday were believed to be linked to the earlier incidents.
Police yesterday arrested a 43-year-old man and charged him in connection with all four incidents.
Police said the man faced four charges of arson, four of burglary and two of setting mantraps, relating to the cricket club incidents.
He will appear in court on May 6.
Fires had been set in six places in the 103-year-old wooden pavilion of the St Albans Cricket Club on Saturday, sparking an inferno that caused damage estimated at more than $200,000.
Earlier, the Old Boys Collegians cricket club, just a few hundred metres away, had been burgled and left filled with gas from opened LPG cylinders.
Christchurch acting chief fire officer Greg Crawford condemned the incident as "bloody stupid", particularly after the recent Tamahere coolstore fire in Waikato which claimed the life of a firefighter in a blaze thought to have been fuelled by an LPG explosion.
A suspicious fire in the derelict Grosvenor Hotel in Moorhouse Ave early yesterday wasn't thought to be connected with the other incidents.
Police said the old hotel was used as a doss house.
- NZPA
