The 9kg gas bottle poisoning
About 3.50am on June 6 Elizabeth Faigan got up use the bathroom.
It was an act that may have saved her life. The bedroom of her Bell Block home was filled with the recognisable stench of LPG and she could hear a hissing sound.
She immediately woke Keith Chisnall, who was still asleep in the bedroom they shared, and together they began to try to find where the gas was coming from.
Eventually they found a hose poking through the wall.
On the other side of that wall, and attached to the hose, was a 9kg LPG bottle that Elizabeth’s husband Peter Faigan had carefully positioned and turned on.
On Friday, Peter Faigan, 59, appeared in the High Court at New Plymouth, via an audio-visual link from Wellington, where he pleaded guilty to two charges of attempted poisoning.
He was originally charged with the attempted murder of Elizabeth and Chisnall, to which he had entered deemed not guilty pleas.
Months before the gas incident, tension had been building between Peter Faigan and the pair.
Peter and Elizabeth Faigan originally shared the Bell Block, Taranaki,
property, owned by a family trust. The Corbett Rd building, which is fronted by Checkers Fast Food, had been partitioned into two living areas – an upstairs and a downstairs.
In 2018, Peter Faigan employed Chisnall to help clean up the address to get it ready to sell, and in return Chisnall was provided accommodation in the lower level.
When Peter and Elizabeth separated in early 2019, she moved downstairs and into the same bedroom as Chisnall.
The following months saw police called to the property a number of times regarding issues between the Peter Faigan and the pair.
Peter Faigan, who had suffered two strokes in the previous six years, at some point had drilled a hole through the bedroom wall to allow him to see inside their room from the outside, an agreed summary of facts stated.
And in September, Chisnall was sentenced to 12 months of supervision for assaulting Peter Faigan.
On the night of the gas incident, hostile text messages were being sent between Peter Faigan and the pair. They stopped about 11pm when Elizabeth Faigan sent a message saying they were going to sleep.
Two hours later Peter Faigan was seen on his own security cameras preparing the LPG gas bottle, the summary stated.
About 1.30am he walked out the door of his residence and positioned himself outside the pair’s bedroom.
He fed the hose through the hole in the wall and turned on the gas cylinder. He then walked away.
Following his arrest Peter Faigan told his brother at the police station he thought gassing the pair would only ‘‘make them sick’’.
His main purpose was to make Chisnall move out, he said.
Justice Simon France remanded Peter Faigan on bail and ordered he return to the High Court at New Plymouth for sentencing on December 16. The matter has been referred to restorative justice.