KEY POINTS:
Marie Joy Neale has been jailed for six years for her 20th arson conviction - one that could have killed a sleeping man.
She had pleaded guilty after the Ashburton housefire which caused $47,000 damage, and was appearing for sentence on a charge of arson which caused danger to life.
She lit the fire in the kitchen of a house where she was staying, in the early morning, only 17 days after her release from prison for another series of arsons.
Defence counsel Serina Bailey appealed for Christchurch District Court Judge Stephen Erber to treat 47-year-old Neale with compassion. She had a severe personality disorder and an inability to cope with stress, but she was not eligible for follow-up programmes under the Mental Health Act.
But Judge Erber said the protection of the public was paramount.
He said Neale lit the fire in a house where three men were sleeping, and she knew two of them had been drinking heavily.
When she raised the alarm about 5am, the fire had spread from a kitchen rubbish tin. She and two of the men got out of the house but the third remained sleeping on the couch.
The other two men then fought their way inside - one of them cutting his hand in the process - to get the friend out.
Insurance payments did not cover all the damage at the Housing New Zealand house. Smoke inhalation had affected the asthma of the sleeping victim, who had lost his cellphone in the blaze. The householder had lost a lot of personal items.
It was clear that without the rescue, the sleeping man would have lost his life, said the judge.
He said he was alarmed by Neale's record of 19 previous convictions for arson, seven of them where life was endangered. She had been jailed for 11 of the arsons last year.
He said he was surprised that it was not possible under the legislation to consider a preventive detention sentence - an open-ended jail term - for arson.
He imposed a six-year jail term, referring to Neale as "a real, present, and future danger".
- NZPA
