Arson or Accident?
| Date | 01 April 1958 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X5803100205 |
| Published date | 01 April 1958 |
| Author | H. J. Walls |
| Subject Matter | Article |
ARSON
OR
ACCIDENT? 95
he was at fault. This they thought would be particularly so if the words
of the Act or Order were in fairly general terms. In the present case
the Prosecutor libelled the words of the Regulation and added such a
specification. After using the words of the Regulation he added a
reference to the accused's failure to keep a proper look-out, and while
a passenger was entering the bus, with one hand on the handrail and
a foot on the step entering the bus, giving a bell signal to the driver
to drive away, which he did. Accordingly not only was the complaint
relevant but the requirements of fair notice had been amply met with.
Arson or Accident?
By H. J.
WALLS
Staff Chemist,
Home
Office South Western Forensic Science
Laboratory, Bristol
IN
every case of a completely unexplained fire,the possibility of arson
naturally occurs to the police officers concerned.
The
suspicion
will also remain alive until there is produced proof, or at least reason-
able cause for believing, that the fire was accidental. It will also gain
strength from the known existence, or discovery, of a possible motive
for arson, even in the absence of any physical evidence of fire raising
being found. There exists therefore the duty of trying to discover the
cause of all such fires. To do so is nearly always difficult, and is too
often impossible. In general, the problem can be solved at all only
by the closest collaboration, at the earliest possible stage, of police,
fire-fighting forces and laboratory services.
However laborious this investigation may be, it is directed at
answering just two questions:
1. Was the fire accidental or intentional?
2.
If
it was intentional, what evidence is there to point to the
method of starting
and/or
to the perpetrator?
This article is concerned only with the first of these questions, and
the writer proposes to deal with it by describing the circumstances of
three fires. In each case there was a reason for suspecting arson, but, in
each, investigation showed that accident was at least a more probable
explanation.
Of
the three fires described, the first was (in the writer's
opinion) undoubtedly accidental, there is a very strong probability
(amounting in the writer's opinion to a near-certainty) that the second
was accidental, and, in the case of the third, a reasonable explanation
of an accidental origin, and no evidence to the contrary, were
discovered.
96
THE
POLICE JOURNAL
CASE 1
About 8 a.m. on a morning in March a fire occurred in a house occu-
pied by a lorry driver, his wife and two boys aged 10 and 3, and the
wife and both children perished.
The
house was a small two-storey
stone-built terrace one. As shown in the sketch plan (Fig. 1), the two
ground floor rooms opened off a passage running directly from the
front door into the scullery.
The
back room had a stone or cement floor,
and its ceiling had consisted of thin, bare wood fastened directly to the
joists supporting the floor above.
The
staircase rose from this room to a
small landing off which a small bathroom and three small bedrooms
opened.
The
space under the stairs was boxed in as a cupboard with a
door, and was used for hanging up clothing. A large number (at least
1
~
l/D
LIVmG
L-:..-..,
ROOM
}=~
I
01
CI.l
~
FRONT
[)
ROOK
r-.
__
.......
----j~--
Window
Boiler
Pos1Uon
of
Stairoase
--
Bed
LARGE
FR01I'l'
BEDBOOIl
Fro
nt
GBOUND
FIroR
Front
PIRS'l' J'IDOR
FIG.
1
SKETCH
PLAN
(not
to scale) OF
HOUSE
DESCRIBED
IN
CASE
I.
Partitions. etc .. shown by
dotted
Jines were largely
destroyed
by
the
fire.
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