A man's on trial for allegedly burning down his ex's house, after he learned she had moved on.
A woman who was worried about what her ex-partner might do after he allegedly turned up at her home late at night, shouting and calling her a b****, bundled up her children with a few essentials and left.
Hours later the house was burnt to the ground - allegedly by her ex, Scott Thomas McIntosh.
The 40-year-old faces two charges of arson in a jury trial under way at the Tauranga District Court this week. He’s also charged with unlawful use of a motor vehicle and dangerous driving.
The Crown says he set fire to the house because of jealousy, after months earlier setting a BMW alight, because his ex had moved on.
It’s alleged his destructive behaviour started after the relationship between him and complainant Kori Flood ended in mid-2020, just a matter of months after it had started.
In evidence given in court, Flood said she had let McIntosh move in with her because his living circumstances had changed and she “felt sorry for him”, and didn’t want him to have to live with his parents.
To begin with, things had been fine and she’d thought he was a “cool guy” with his “head screwed on”, because he owned his own business.
But she said he’d become jealous and controlling, and she felt he had picked on one of her sons.
But it was a threat he allegedly made that he would smash her sister’s head in with a baseball bat, which prompted her to ask him to move out.
After the relationship ended, the court heard McIntosh turned up at Flood’s home and drove his car into hers, before running over her letterbox, and ramming the car into the side of her house. He was previously convicted for this, on a charge of wilful damage.
She invited a flatmate of her sister’s to move in - partly because he needed a new place to stay, and also because she wanted added security. She began a casual relationship with him and Flood said McIntosh got wind of it.
In her evidence, Flood said that McIntosh arrived at her house asking for his bed back, but she locked the door. An argument ensued, police were called, and Flood left after police said they would assist him in getting his belongings back.
However, when she returned the front tyre of the BMW belonging to her new flatmate had been slashed.
Later that night, Flood had just tucked her boys into bed when she heard a noise out front.
She thought it was just the neighbour putting her bins out, but she heard a knocking on the door. She said she feared it was McIntosh, but realised it was the neighbour who then told her the BMW, parked on the road outside, was in flames.
The Crown alleges McIntosh intentionally started a fire to the front wheel of the BMW.
In her opening address, Crown Prosecutor Larissa Mulder said the jury would hear evidence from police officers who could place him at her address due to cell towers his phone was using at the time.
Over the following months, despite police orders prohibiting contact, McIntosh continued to message Flood over WhatsApp.
Flood said she felt that she and her children would be safer if she knew what he was doing and they had some contact.
McIntosh was also doing repairs to the car belonging to her that he had damaged.
She said they’d maintained a friendship, but McIntosh wanted more and he kept asking for their relationship to be romantic.
Messages read in court showed they’d also argued with each other over WhatsApp, and things had become increasingly tense before things came to a head in February 2021.
On the evening of February 6, Flood said she’d heard what she knew to be McIntosh’s car revving and idling down the end of her driveway.
She described hearing him doing “skids” outside on the road.
She alleges he came up and began shouting outside her house, calling her a liar and a b****.
Fearing for her safety, she’d put her children into her bedroom, and told the man with whom she was in the early stages of dating, and who was visiting her, that McIntosh was outside and she was worried about what he might do.
They left and headed to a property in Ōmokoroa.
Flood locked the house, and said in court that no appliances had been left on, besides the fridge, microwave, and modem.
Through the evening, McIntosh continued to message her, including allegedly threatening to kill himself if she called the police.
He also allegedly sent a message to the man she was with, with the address of the house they were staying at overnight.
The next morning when she returned to her Greerton house she found three police vehicles were in the driveway.
In court the woman sobbed as she said, “I was asked not to go inside the property because it had been burnt down over night.”
She said she’d immediately suspected who was responsible.
“I told the police straight away it was Scott McIntosh.”
The defence case is that McIntosh did not have anything to do with the fires, and did not do any of the things he is accused of doing.
Defence lawyer Tony Rickard-Simms said the jury would need to take each charge on its own and be careful not to make assumptions.
The trial continues.
Hannah Bartlett is a Tauranga-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She previously covered court and local government for the Nelson Mail, and before that was a radio reporter at Newstalk ZB.
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