Spiteful fire attack puts arsonist in jail
A TOWNSVILLE woman is still bearing scars after her vengeful expartner burnt her house and business down a week before Christmas.
Nicole Le- Roy lost priceless memorabilia, all her personal belongings as well as her coffee cart, which was her sole source of income.
But the scariest thought was that she and her three children could have lost their lives.
David Kenneth John Theodossio, 43, pleaded guilty in Townsville District Court yesterday to arson and was sentenced to 4 ½ years in jail.
Ms Le- Roy and Theodossio met in June 2015 and their relationship ended in animosity last October.
Judge Gregory Lynham said that on December 18 Theodossio was at home with some of his five children when he started threatening to burn Ms Le- Roy’s home down.
At 9.30pm, his son saw him pour lawnmower fuel into a Coke bottle.
About half an hour later, Theodossio asked his daughter to go for a drive but did not say where he was going.
Once at a Boundary St timber cottage, Theodossio threw the Coke bottle and a piece of lit material through Ms Le- Roy’s bedroom window.
“When you got back to the car you said to your daughter, ‘ it’s done, I’ve set fire to Nicky’s house’,” Judge Lynham said.
“When your daughter asked you why, you replied to her: ‘ Because she embarrassed me’.”
Theodossio told his daughter not to tell anyone what he had done.
He went home and confessed to two other children, repeating the request to stay quiet.
Some of the children drove to the South Townsville house the next morning and told police what their father had done.
Theodossio was arrested and taken into custody, where he has been remanded for 253 days.
Judge Lynham ordered the jail term be suspended after 15 months, which will see Theodossio released next March.
“There was an element of vindictiveness and vengefulness in your behaviour – your conduct was clearly premeditated,” he said.
“It was clearly motivated by spite, and what seems to have been a deliberate decision on your part that if you could not have the complainant in your life, that you were going to effect some sort of revenge upon her.”
Ms Le- Roy rented the home and had business insurance but no contents insurance.
The fire caused $ 270,000 in damage to the house and caused an estimated $ 87,755 loss to Ms Le- Roy for her destroyed possessions and loss of income.
Ms Le- Roy was in tears as the sentence was handed down.
Outside court, she said her business, Missy Moo’s Coffee Cart, was back in business but she was still battling financial and emotional pain.
“I’m still trying to get my life together eight months later,” she said.
“I’m an emotional wreck, I’m scarred. I can’t believe the stuff I’ve lost and can never get back. “I’ve got kids. “I’ve been a mum 24 years and I’ve got nothing, nothing at all.”
Ms Le- Roy said it was lucky that a last- minute change of plans meant her children, now aged 20, 12 and 10, were staying at their father’s home at Bushland Beach on the night.
She was also not present in the house on the night.
“( The father) had rung me and said he couldn’t be stuffed driving in. We could have all been there,” she said. “My two little ones are freaked out.”