A couple killed by a fire in their home were victims of a blaze started as “payback” by the woman’s former husband, court documents show.
David John Campbell admitted on Tuesday setting alight a Deer Park unit, where his former wife, Genine Ballantine, and her boyfriend, Steven Smith, died on September 20, 2013.
Less than 40 minutes after starting the blaze, Campbell rang a woman and told her he had “torched Deer Park”, a police summary tendered to Melbourne Magistrates Court said.
Campbell, 45, showed no emotion as he pleaded guilty to two counts of arson causing death.
Five other charges were withdrawn. Ms Ballantine and Mr White, both 44, died trying to rescue a small dog from the unit, but two men who were also living there escaped through a bedroom window.
The dog also died.
The police summary said Campbell and Ms Ballantine had been in a tumultuous relationship for 20 years, but were separated at the time of the fire.
Ms Ballantine moved in with Mr White at the start of 2013, but she returned to Campbell in April of that year, only to return to Mr White in August.
The trio were all known to police, and Ms Ballantine said both men had been violent to her.
Campbell kicked in a lounge window at the unit following an argument with Mr White in January 2013, police said.
In the weeks before the fire, the police summary says, the men exchanged threats in telephone calls and text messages.
Campbell also threw a hammer through a kitchen window, police said.
Police said that about 12.43am on September 20, 2013, Campbell reached through the broken lounge window and set fire to a curtain with a cigarette lighter.
The previous evening, Campbell had been contacted by a woman, who said she thought Mr White had assaulted Ms Ballantine, the police summary said.
It said Campbell co-operated with police after the incident and told them he lit the fire to “pay back” Mr White for hurting Ms Ballantine, although he did not intend to harm anyone.
Campbell, a truck driver from Tullamarine, was remanded in custody to appear in a directions hearing at the Supreme Court on Wednesday.
