Our Beautiful House was destroyed by fire on the night of 9 September ’11.

Maurice FLETCHER of Whangarei

Maurice Fletcher, a private investigator working for STATE Insurance met me a couple of days after the fire, it was at the site, my skin still crawled when I looked at the damage to our much loved house

He immediately told me that he was in charge, not to contact anybody else or it would cause delays. He also said he would quickly find the cause of the fire, that he would find out how WE had done it!
I was shocked to be immediately accused in this way, with a serious heart condition stress has to be avoided and the stress level was intense without being openly designated as an arsonist even before the investigator had collected any evidence at all.

I struggled to walk around the site with him in the same way as I had with the Police and Fire Brigade, it was only the second time I had actually gone near the remains of the building. I left him digging in the ashes, looking for the evidence he sought.

The Hallway

The Fire Brigade had cleared this area following the fire. They obviously considered it as a possible source of fire area. The hallway was utterly destroyed, the main staircase was located here, winding up to the main living area. The room was almost empty, an entrance hall with a couple of pieces of furniture and some pictures on the wall. The investigators cleared it further, the intense heat cracked the thick Italian floor tiles.

He later visited the neighbor that we had stayed with on the night following the fire, leaving them in no doubt that he thought we were criminals and warning them not to assist us. We decided not to contact our good friends in Kerikeri to stop them being exposed to this sort of intimidation and upset.

The next day he came to our little house in Paihia, he interviewed us all individually, using a recording device. He actually asked my wife and daughter if they knew how I had set the fire! Naturally, they didn’t respond well to this line of questioning and investigation.

He went on repeatedly about minute details such as, what we did on the way out of the house, who left first, second and last etc. It is very difficult to recall such data 5 or 6 days after a dramatic event even if you are well, in shock, ill with endless symptoms including mental confusion making giving accurate answers to the questions impossible.

As he left, my wife showed him out and I picked up my MacBook, to check for email. It went mad, flashing that a new network had been found every time there was a noise. I scribbled on a sheet of paper, “The room is bugged! Ham it up!” We did a quick search but found nothing so sat down and acted out a little scene to see if we could send Maurice running in circles, double entente statements that a suspicious idiot could interpret any way he liked whilst actually saying little! It may have been paranoia but Maurice called the next morning and said he had a few more questions, I suspect he only came to pick up his bug since the MacBook stopped reporting new networks once he had left! Such bugging without a Court order is illegal of course and totally inadmissible!

He explained that since we were 300Km away from the house when the fire started he would have to investigate if we had employed somebody to set the fire for us. He wanted the details of our bank accounts, our telephone and mobile accounts. We gave him everything but it took weeks before he asked Vodafone to confirm the sheet of data we gave him hadn’t been ‘edited’ by us in some way. The banks were also contacted to verify the statements were genuine, weeks passed whilst these checks were done. We supplied all the info he requested, some difficulty was recorded when he wanted details of the companies I was involved with in the UK during the 1980′s, memory and numbers involved make such memories beyond me, he couldn’t explain why they were relevant to the investigation.

One event caused us immense distress, Maurice called and asked if there were any stones deliberately or artistically placed in the house! It became clear that they had found stones inside the building, particularly in the library and hall, areas which the investigators and Fire Brigade had excavated in detail being obvious centers of intense fire. We confirmed that we had no stones in the house. It became a serious worry to us that if stones were in the house then they may have been used by an arsonist to break the windows before introducing an inflamitant. Could this have been an attempt on our lives? The cars locked in the garage and the light we had left switching on and off in the kitchen would have made it appear that we were in the house.

Following these questions we have retreated further, now avoiding visiting Kerikeri as much as possible.

Stones Around the garden, the borders are edged with large stones bought from the Waipapa Garden Supplies site. The stones had been laid out carefully in areas close to the house such as this border close to the front of the house. Same border is shown in both pix but at different alignments.

You can easily see that many large stones are missing from the left hand end of the border, large stones like the ones on the right should border the area. Weeds have grown in the soil exposed by their movement. They may have been moved by the firefighters but we can not find them nearby.

The investigators took great interest in our PC systems, they searched for them, hoping to recover the data off the hard disks!
Daughter Eleanor’s PC was easy to find, her room was heat and smoke damaged at the far end of the building but the computer was intact.
My main PC was invisible initially, the floor of the office had collapsed but the floor itself looked undamaged. The weather and movement in the ruins of the house finally exposed it and the fire investigator recovered the drives. It is in remarkably good condition.

My PC   The PC had been in my office, the floor had collapsed tipping the contents down to the ground floor but the PC clearly only suffered heat damage, the plastic parts on the exterior have melted but the hard drives were removable. The new power supply and super graphics card I had upgraded to in last couple of months are visible in reasonable condition in this photo.

I had given details of the furniture and layout in the house early in the investigation but somehow they misunderstood the contents of the library which it has become clear is the area that the investigators consider was the center of the original fire.

Library – Center of the Fire? The library was apparently the center of the fire, the room contained two sofas along with a Piano, a keyboard, and a guitar. All sold over the weekend on Trade Me but were destroyed. On the sofa I believe I left a Dell Latitude laptop after using it after two people who viewed the piano on the day before the fire. One left saying they would ‘Buy Now!’ immediately, I checked Trade Me to see if this had happened.

The furniture had been moved around to take photographs for Trade Me, the large sofa was under the window, directly in the center of the excavated area, the laptop was on the floor next to it until I picked it up to use the day before the fire. I believe I left it on the sofa.

Many of the items seen in the picture above were being sold on Trade Me, most sales completed whilst we were away or in the days following the fire, many hundreds of dollars of sales had to be cancelled and refunded since the goods had been destroyed. Many weeks after the fire the investigators returned to search for the laptop in the library!

The Laptop – A Possible Cause? Our laptop was part of the Lodge set up, giving internet access to our guests in the Library Suite.

Unlike my PC, the laptop has clearly been right in the center of the intense fire. No chance of recovering any data here! It was found in the ashes that had been dug out of the Library on the day following the fire. After a few days of heavy rain had washed and cleaned the debris, the edge of the laptop case became visible, it fell apart when picked up.

A few weeks ago, Maurice called me to ask if he could come and ask us some more important questions, he wanted to question us separately to try to sort out some inconsistencies in the investigation. Andrew Hooker had told me not to discuss anything with Maurice without checking with him first. He wrote to STATE Insurance suggesting that the meeting take place at his office with him present to prevent Maurice setting traps for us in the questioning. Oddly the questioning never took place, we have been waiting to meet Maurice for several weeks but no more has been heard! Maybe the thought of Andrew being present is too much for Maurice! He certainly wouldn’t be able to take the accusatory line he took on our initial interviews if he had a witness!

More recently, Maurie Fletcher has been asking us for HISTORICAL details of companies I ran in the UK! This was in the late 1970′s and 1980′s! We left UK over 10 years ago, moving to France before coming to NZ, he has also been chasing us for the details of the Chateau we owned and ran as a business there! We sold it as a going concern and it is still owned by the buyers who are happily trading!
We can see no relevance to the claim of any of these inquiries, we did nothing wrong then nor now but what could Maurice be looking for?

We answered all the questions that STATE Insurance asked when we set up the insurance policy with great care and accuracy, the policy explains the ‘Duty of Disclosure’

‘Keeping us informed

When you apply for insurance with us, you have an important ‘duty of disclosure’. This means that you must:
`    give us all the information that a prudent insurer needs to decide whether to accept or decline your application for insurance. If we accept your application, it includes information that a prudent insurer needs to decide the cost of your insurance and the terms and conditions that will apply (including the excess), and
`    provide us with true, accurate and complete information, even if you think it isn’t important.
If you don’t tell us, your insurance policy may not be valid and you may not be covered if you want to make a claim.

You must tell us about anything that could affect your insurance with us.
For example, you must tell us:
` if the home will not be lived in for more than 60 consecutive days
` if the home will be occupied by a tenant
` if you have been convicted of a criminal offence in the last 7-years
` if the home will be altered or added to
` if you have been declined or refused insurance in the last 5-years
` if there has been any material change in circumstances since the policy started
` if you insure your home again with anyone else

These examples are only a guide.
Remember, we provide your insurance based on the information you gave us when you applied for it. If anything changes, or if you expect something to change, you must let us know or your policy may be unenforceable.
Please ask us if you’re not sure if you should tell us about something.’

I don’t see anything there about disclosing what we did for a living 30 years ago here on the other side of the planet! We didn’t do anything now or then that would cause any insurance company a problem. We have had insurance policies all our life, occasionally making genuine claims that amounted to far less than the premiums we have paid in that period as everybody does!

After more than 6 months, it is clear that the investigation does not have a conclusive case against us, that would be impossible since we know we had no connection with the fire. Maurice Fletcher doesn’t understand how we live, he seems to have no idea of finance, resources or how a balance sheet works. Since our lifestyle makes no sense to him, he constantly and stupidly asks if we are going to go bankrupt and other similar questions.
The Insurance claim covers only the building, the site is valuable and the claim doesn’t affect the toxin problem. In any case, the cover is to rebuild the property as the first option. We under insured the contents as do most people, not allowing for all the small bits and pieces that will cost a considerable amount to replace.

We pointed out to him that we had sold many items on Trade Me that had not been collected, even refusing a cash offer for the piano in the library the day before we left. A minor change in timing, had we had any knowledge of the coming fire would have netted us thousands of dollars in cash.

The cars had both been very recently WOF’d and licensed, the Mercedes was my pride and joy, it was far more valuable than the car we went away in, insignificant compared to the house but it would have been obvious to save it if we had been planning the fire.

All the legal evidence for the High Court cases had all been destroyed, it would have been simple to put the folder in the car we went away in but it was left behind and lost.

The pollution from the fire itself means any soil sampling will be useless for several years. See our ODD FACTS page for more info on the evidence that shows we had no part of the fire!

Another incident occurred just before Xmas, Mr Fletcher called us,  he wanted to ask us a few questions and asked for our address, I explained the security issue he said we had nothing to fear from him and that he wanted to return some items to us. WE thought that maybe some items in the safe had survived, Alison was ken to know so, reluctantly, we gave him the address, he agreed to call us the next day to fix an appointment.

The next day the Kerikeri Police arrived with a Search Warrant to remove our laptops! We handed them my MacBook and a Toshiba, they were visibly excited, one used their mobile phone and a very exuberant Mr Fletcher arrived just a couple of minutes later!

He told us the investigation was very nearly over, smiling broadly! Unknown to him my daughter had, in the mean time, supplied the Police officer with the receipt for her new Toshiba laptop that she had purchased a couple of weeks after the fire so she could complete her university studies at home.

The Police officer called Mr Fletcher out of our room to speak to him, he returned somewhat deflated! We asked for the items that he said that he was returning, there were none!

Then the Police office came in asked him “Is there was anything else we can do for you, Maurie?”

This rather spoilt his claim that the Police action had nothing to do with him! He told us that there had been lots of work at the fire site the day before and asked about a few things they had found but there was obviously nothing conclusive. We found the site had been ravaged by a large digger with large areas being cleared, very different to the care and fine technique of Russell, see image above for a view of his work in the same area! Any evidence that had been there to explain the fire was almost certainly destroyed by these actions, we may never find out what caused it now!

It is clear, on reflection, that the desperate search at the fire site had been looking for the remains of the Toshiba Laptop that had been destroyed or may have even caused the fire. They hadn’t found it so Maurice thought that we still had it and had not declared it to the insurance company. Being an ex-policeman it was easy to get them to obtain a search warrant and grab the incriminating laptop. When the Police actually found a Toshiba laptop he must have been wildly excited, they called him and he arrived just two minutes later so he was clearly just waiting around the corner!

He was so happy, pleased to tell us the investigation was nearly over and we would hear from State in a day or two but then the bombshell of the proof that it was a new Toshiba laptop and not the one we knew had been destroyed utterly flattened him!

We have not heard a word from him since! Nor a single word from State Insurance, the Police or any other interested party. Any claim of an on-going investigation is utter rubbish!

Maurice broke his word, destroyed our trust and violated our privacy. He built us up by telling us the investigation was nearly over and yet, months later, nothing more has happened!

At that time we were living in a friends house, my daughter’s horse was still at the property and we visited it on most days. It was heartbreaking to see to carnage to the site caused by the fire, the amount of material moved by the digger was huge, a vast area of the house had been cleared.

The laptops were returned two weeks later, the MacBook had been clumsily opened, a screw was left protruding, the case scratched, it has been performing oddly ever since. The Toshiba has also been affected, seeming to be very slow at times.

Weeks later when we were getting ready to leave the area when our neighbour, who kept an eye on our horse for us, reported that two men had been standing in the ruins for a long time the day before, ‘scratching their heads.’

I wandered about the site trying to see what they had been so puzzled by, something flashed in the ashes, exposed by the rain! I looked more carefully and saw an object that was remarkably like a mirror, it took me only seconds to recognise it as a 2.5inch hard disk drive, or rather the remains of one! The exposed edge of the platter was glinting in the sunshine!

I went back to the car to get a camera and took these pictures -

This is the inner wall of the library, the Toshiba was roughly above this on the 1st floor.

The little Alice in Wonderland books are tiny, the drive is dead centre, you can just see the edge of the circular platter! (see below!)

 

This is the underside, the steel case of the drive, not badly damaged in the fire!

You can see the three platters of the data storing disks in the drive here! A modern laptop drive, about 12mm thick before the fire expanded it!

This surface of the disk is still mirror finished, it reflected the sunlight.

The drive is undoubtedly a 2.5inch laptop drive, the laptop itself would have been almost all plastic and alloy which would burn easily. Only the HDD survived having a steel shell, moved about by the big digger Maurice employed searching for the laptop and then exposed by the rain. I left it were I found it! I sent these pictures to Andrew Hooker and we decided to wait to see if the case concluded before publishing them.

After 40+ years in the microcomputer industry I can probably recognise these parts better than anyone else in NZ. I’m not surprised Maurice missed it, he was looking for the remains of a laptop, something big like the old Dell pictured above, modern laptops like this Toshiba are almost totally made of flammable materials, an alloy frame often magnesium with plastic cover and inners all of which would be easily destroyed in a fire!

The fire was a disaster for us, we don’t need STATE Insurance treating us like criminals without the slightest bit of evidence. After suffering such a devastating event we deserved compassion, help and assistance not the callous, tight fisted, commercial attitude of STATE Insurance and its puppet investigators.

Now over 6 months after the fire we wonder what DREADFUL INCRIMINATING FACTS are causing the investigation to drag on and on! We know there can be no actual evidence since we didn’t cause the fire or have anything to do with it!

As in most cases like this it will look like there is loads of circumstantial stuff that we know got Maurice excited but it is all easily and innocently explained!

The water in the house was contaminated!
Well, yes it was, we had discovered high levels of Arsenic and Lead which accounted for the families bad health since we moved into the property but since the source of the toxins was spray residue on the land, burning down the house doesn’t solve anything. The land isn’t insured, the house may be rebuilt on the land or we may move but we will still own the land and that is where the problem lies!

The bank were about to foreclose!
We had built up a significant overdraft due to being so ill for almost 6 years with the effects of the toxins, one of which, mental confusion, stopped us even realising there was a real problem financially. The problem with the bank only began because we informed them of the situation with the contamination, we asked them for help! They promised to help and then their attitude changed and they started to demand repayment. Oddly and difficult for Maurice to explain is why I spend hours on 8th Sept, the day before the fire, writing a long email to the bank that contained a settlement offer that was fair and generous that would have removed the bank issue from our lives.

Alison was desperate to go back to the UK!
One of the effects of toxic poisoning is depression, my wife blamed NZ for her illness and position and naturally felt that going ‘home’ would solve the problems. There was no actuality to the desire, we had been considering moving to the Waikato if the house had sold!

We went away, the cats were in a cattery and the dogs went with us whilst the house burnt!
We bless our good fortune here, normally daughter Eleanor would have stayed at home looking after the animals whilst we went away. If this had happened from the descriptions we got of the fire from neighbours she would have had little or no chance of escaping! We had been burgled just ten days earlier, Eleanor had been talking about moving to Waikato University for some time and we wanted some time away from the house where we felt threatened after the break in. Nothing significant, sales of some of the Lodge fitting were going on Trade Me over the weekend but we decided to go to reduce the stress caused by the break in!

We took our passports away with us rather than leaving them to burn in the fire!
Having traveled all over the World and relied on our passports for ID at all times it was natural to take them as we had done every time we went away. One of the main considerations was, and still is, that Alison’s mother is 84 yo, a widow, frail and lives alone in the UK, she could need urgent assistance in a medical emergency from her only daughter at any time, traveling back to Kerikeri to pick things would not be sensible. We take our passports with us whenever we venture more than an hour or two away from home.

We dumped valuable possessions at the Motel in Hamilton, having taken them away with us to save them from the fire!
The car was overloaded, not with things that needed saving but with Eleanor’s artwork portfolio that she was taking to the University to discuss her moving there to continue her studies, her riding gear so she could ride a horse that was advertised as a potential purchase and of course the extra stuff that the dogs needed. We had unpacked at the Motel, when we got the phone call about the fire Alison and I went into shock, it was awful! Eleanor tried to repack the car but there was so much stuff that was not packed, the hotel receptionist tried to help, then suggested leaving some of it behind which we did. It wasn’t our suggestion at all! The stuff left behind was all Ellie’s artwork, most of her riding gear and a bag of her clothes including the old jewellery box that she has had for many years, it contained nothing of any real value, just trinkets and dress jewellery, hence it was just left behind without a second thought. Maurice only found out about these things because we told him we had left them behind.

 

Mind you, in view of  the apparent STATE Insurance company policy to avoid paying claims – STATE INSURANCE – Delay, Deny, Defend would anything we say or do make any difference, I doubt it!