{"id":25536,"date":"2013-03-05T17:42:46","date_gmt":"2013-03-05T07:42:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/?p=25536"},"modified":"2020-09-25T10:12:15","modified_gmt":"2020-09-25T00:12:15","slug":"police-drop-nine-fire-charges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2013\/03\/05\/police-drop-nine-fire-charges\/","title":{"rendered":"Police Drop Nine Fire Charges"},"content":{"rendered":"

March 5, 2013<\/strong><\/p>\n

Police have dropped nine charges against a man who had been accused of lighting unauthorised fires in the Cushnie area.<\/p>\n

Clinton Nicholas Pascoe, from Tewantin, pleaded guilty in Murgon Magistrates Court today to the sole remaining charge, of lighting an unauthorised fire on August 20, 2012.<\/p>\n

Pascoe first appeared in court on September 11 last year but the case was adjourned several times to allow “case conferencing” to occur between the prosecution and defence.<\/p>\n

Case conferencing<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0is a process designed to “facilitate the efficient and timely resolution of summary matters”.<\/p>\n

Police Prosecutor Sgt Greg Kapernick told the court today police would offer no evidence on nine of the charges.<\/p>\n

Pascoe pleaded guilty to the tenth charge.<\/p>\n

Sgt Kapernick said police patrolling the Chinchilla-Wondai Road at 8:35am on August 20 last year observed a white Hilux dualcab ute parked near the intersection of Denmark Road.<\/p>\n

As they approached, the ute quickly sped off.<\/p>\n

They observed a freshly lit fire in long grass near where the vehicle \u00a0had been parked. The fire was about 30cm in diameter and the flames were half a metre to a metre tall.<\/p>\n

When they pulled over the ute, Pascoe had denied stopping his vehicle and denied lighting the fire.<\/p>\n

Nambour solicitor Jason Kerr told the court Pascoe had been fighting with his wife on the morning in question.<\/p>\n

He had stopped the vehicle to “relieve himself ” when he decided to read a note his wife had left for him. He lit up the note and “inadvertently set a grass fire”.<\/p>\n

Mr Kerr said his client had panicked and driven off; he was remorseful for his actions.<\/p>\n

The court was told the maximum penalty for the offence was a fine of 50 penalty units (ie $5500) or six months’ imprisonment.<\/p>\n

Mr Kerr argued that Pascoe should be fined 10 per cent of this, ie $550 and no conviction should be recorded. He said Pascoe had no criminal history.<\/p>\n

Magistrate Mark Bucknall said it was a serious offence and there needed to be a clear message to the community.<\/p>\n

“This is a rural community where in August the ground is tinder dry,” Mr Bucknall said.<\/p>\n

He said there had been a real danger to Pascoe and to others by his actions.<\/p>\n

Mr Bucknall adjourned sentencing to 9:00am on April 9 to allow both the prosecution and defence to \u00a0prepare submissions and provide sentence comparisons for him to consider.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Police have dropped nine charges against a man who had been accused of lighting unauthorised fires in the Cushnie area.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":104807,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,24],"tags":[155,28,1132],"yoast_head":"\nPolice Drop Nine Fire Charges - southburnett.com.au<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2013\/03\/05\/police-drop-nine-fire-charges\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Police Drop Nine Fire Charges - southburnett.com.au\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Police have dropped nine charges against a man who had been accused of lighting unauthorised fires in the Cushnie area.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2013\/03\/05\/police-drop-nine-fire-charges\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"southburnett.com.au\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-03-05T07:42:46+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-09-25T00:12:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/scalesofjustice.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"300\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Anne Miller\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Anne Miller\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2013\/03\/05\/police-drop-nine-fire-charges\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2013\/03\/05\/police-drop-nine-fire-charges\/\",\"name\":\"Police Drop Nine Fire Charges - 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