A Vietnamese refugee who set fire to his family home and ignored pleas to help rescue his pregnant wife and two of his eight children trapped inside has been jailed for three and a half years.
As the fire spread throughout the Kings Park house last November, Hoang Phat Hua’s wife screamed at him to save their 12-year-old son, who had Down Syndrome, but Hua ignored her. The boy managed to get out on his own but suffered minor burns.
County Court judge Mark Gamble said Hua was standing motionless outside the burning house when his 16-year-old son, who could hear his mother screaming and his two sisters crying inside, pleaded with him to save them but Hua did nothing.
The teenager then started throwing rocks at the windows of the house to try to get some fresh air for those trapped inside.
The fire brigade arrived soon after and rescued Hua’s wife and two daughters who had to be treated for smoke inhalation.
Judge Gamble said Hua’s conduct had been a serious breach of the trusted position he had held as both a husband and father.
Judge Gamble said Hua’s decision to set fire to the home had been an ‘‘extreme and somewhat callous act’’ which had been inherently dangerous.
Hua, 43, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to a number of charges including arson, conduct endangering life, recklessly causing injury, making a threat to kill and cultivating cannabis.
The judge said Hua’s wife had taken out an intervention order against him seven months before he poured petrol over the kitchen and loungeroom floor and down the hallway and used a cigarette lighter to set it on fire.
Hua, who suffers from schizophrenia, had earlier taken out a large kitchen knife and told his terrified wife that if she called the police, ‘‘I’ll kill you and burn you alive’’.
The judge said firefighters believed those inside the house had been in a life-threatening situation at the time because of the ferocity of the fire and density of the smoke.
Damage to the house was estimated at more than $100,000.
Firefighters later found a hydroponic cannabis crop growing in a rear shed.
Judge Gamble said Hua’s wife and children remained supportive of him despite what he had done. Hua’s wife and three of their nine children were in court for his sentencing on Wednesday.
Psychiatric reports indicated Hua, a heavy cannabis user who had taken methamphetamine on the day he set fire to the family home, had been suffering from chronic schizophrenia rather than a drug-induced psychosis.
Hua’s drug abuse had aggravated his mental illness and disinhibited his aggressive urges, the judge said.
Hua had been hearing voices which made him agitated and reckless and saw him act in a way designed to scare his wife.
Judge Gamble said Hua had caused a significant degree of panic and fear to his wife and two children but his moral culpability was reduced because of his mental illness. His prospects for rehabilitation were reasonable as long as he continued to take his anti-psychotic medication.
Hua was jailed for three and a half years with a non-parole period of two years and three months.
