Arsonist Nathan Sinclair, 24, jailed after burning down Whittington home

An arsonist with a “disturbing” past who burned down a Whittington home has been locked up, but it will never replace the memories of a mother and daughter he left “devastated”.

Nathan Sinclair. Picture: supplied

A Geelong man who burned down a single mother’s home after bombarding her with almost 60 phone calls has been jailed.

Nathan Lee Sinclair, 24, appeared in the County Court at Geelong on Thursday, having pleaded guilty to arson and threatening to destroy property on Tuesday.

During a hearing interrupted by rumbling thunder, Judge Michael O’Connell jailed Sinclair for a maximum of three years.

Sinclair must remain behind bars for two years before he’s eligible for parole, but has already served 482 days.

Sinclair burned down a house on Telstar Crt in Whittington on June 19 after a woman who lived in the home borrowed his car.

The June 19, 2023 blaze destroyed the Whittington home. Picture: Alan Barber

Sinclair grew agitated when she didn’t return it quickly enough and sent threatening messages to the woman, including 58 calls across one morning, demanding it back.

Just before 1.30pm Sinclair set fire to a bed in the master bedroom, starting a blaze that gutted the home and caused irreparable damage.

The woman’s mother, who also lived at the property, returned to find smoke billowing and her house surrounded by firetrucks.

Judge O’Connell said Sinclair’s actions had left his victims “devastated by the destruction of their home”.

The court heard the fire caused more than $350,000 worth of damage, not to mention unquantifiable sentimental losses that cannot be replaced.

The court heard Sinclair was a relatively young offender whose upbringing was “dysfunctional in the extreme”.

His “disturbing and deprived” childhood, including abuse from his “cruel and violent” father, left him with “lifelong psychological and emotional impairments” including complex post-traumatic stress disorder.

Sinclair often lashed out as he was “chronically prone to aggression and violent reactions”, the court heard.

This emotional explosiveness was “amplified” when he was intoxicated.

However, Judge O’Connell told the court these issues “by no means” absolved Sinclair of responsibility for his actions, even if they did reduce his moral culpability somewhat.

Sinclair’s defence argued that the blaze was unsophisticated and not pre-planned, and the risk of injuries to others was minimised as the house was detached from its neighbours.

The prosecution put that the threats were aggravated as they were made to a number of other people and not just the primary victim.

Judge O’Connell said he accepted it was “not the most sophisticated” example of arson but said it was “effective” in destroying the house.

Sinclair did it to spite his victim just because she had not returned his car quick enough.

“You need to learn that you cannot behave in this way,” Judge O’Connell told Sinclair.

Sinclair began skipping class in primary school, and his lack of schooling left him with a mild functional intellectual impairment.

Once Judge O’Connell had left the bench, the victim’s mother made her disappointment with the sentence clear, telling prosecutor Fraser Cameron it was “bulls**t”.

Originally published as Arsonist Nathan Sinclair, 24, jailed after burning down Whittington home