Arsonist Antonio Votino jailed for three years for torching a house and three cars following road rage

A crazed driver took out his anger with a fellow motorist by setting fire to his cars and house — despite himself having been badly burned in an unrelated random attack. (File image)

A man has been jailed after attempting to burn three cars and a house following a road rage incident. This image is unrelated to the case.

When another driver cut Antonio Votino off in traffic he knew how to get his revenge.

After smoking “five or six pipes of methamphetamine”, consuming 4 or 5ml of fantasy and buying litres of petrol he and another man set fire to the other driver’s car and house.

When questioned by police hours after the incident, the M oana man refused to answer but officers found a gun and ammunition hidden in his shed.

However, Votino himself had a traumatic history with fire, having received burns to 28 per cent of his body during one of two random assaults in 2014 and 2016.

Votino, 34, was arrested and charged with arson and a series of firearm offences.

He later told the court he had been driving on Holbrooks Rd, Flinders Park, when he was cut off by another driver on June 9, 2018.

Votino said the driver yelled abuse and made rude gestures at him before driving off.

In a drug-induced haze, Votino believed the car had followed him on several occasions. He followed the car to a house on Dumfries Ave, Seaton, then he and his associate filled two containers with petrol at a nearby service station before heading to the Seaton house.

There, the two men doused three cars outside the victim’s house with petrol.

Votino watched as his co-offender poured petrol on the front door step before lighting the fire with a portable blow torch and fleeing into the night.

The occupants of the house, a man and his girlfriend, were woken by the sound of the cars and front of the house burning.

They tried to escape through the front door but found it covered in flames and were forced to flee through the back door.

Police tracked Votino back to his house and found clothing similar to that worn by the pair who lit the fire.

Judge Liesl Chapman said while sentencing Votino in February that his drug use of fantasy and methylamphetamine were no excuse to commit arson.

“You are criminally responsible for what you do when you take those drugs,” Judge Chapman said.

“Arson is a serious and dangerous crime.

“Here, you used a lot of petrol to set fire to cars parked right next to a home in the early hours of the morning.

“Your motivation for what you did is alarming, to say the least.”

Votino was sentenced to three years and 25 days in prison with a non-parole period of two years, five months and three days.