Nathan Sinclair pleads guilty to arson, property damage threats

A convicted robber left a disturbing message on a woman’s phone when she failed to return his car on time. Moments later, her house was destroyed.

House fire in Telstar Crt in Whittington. Picture: Alan Barber

A convicted armed robber set a woman’s home ablaze because she borrowed his car and wasn’t returning it quick enough, a court has heard.

Nathan Sinclair, 24, appeared in the County Court at Geelong on Tuesday via videolink from Port Phillip Prison, and pleaded guilty to single charges of arson and threatening to damage property.

Crown prosecutor Fraser Cameron told the court that on June 19 last year, Sinclair was at a woman’s Whittington home.

The woman went out in the morning, borrowing Sinclair’s car.

While she was gone, Sinclair grew agitated and wanted the vehicle to be returned.

He bombarded her with 58 calls between 7.30am and 1.23pm, as well as texting a friend of the woman and his own friend.

Firefighters put out the blaze at Telstar Crt in Whittington. Picture: Alan Barber

He also tried contacting the woman on Facebook, telling her it was her “last chance”.

About half an hour before the fire, he left a voicemail that said: “Do you actually want me to burn this house down, because I will? I f**king swear I will. All you have to do is answer and bring the f**king car. I’m not joking.”

Nathan Sinclair Picture: supplied

Sinclair started the fire by setting a double bed in the master bedroom alight, a video of which was found on his phone.

The house was completely destroyed, at a cost of more than $350,000 in damage.

At the time, Sinclair had been out of prison for about a month following a sentence for armed robbery.

In a victim impact she read to the court, the woman said her world had been turned “upside down” by the fire.

She said she had “lost everything so suddenly”; so “many memories” were gone.

A single mother, she had tried to make the house a home for her children but it had all gone up in flames.

“My kids will never understand why and they certainly didn’t deserve it,” she said.

In her own statement, the woman’s mother told the court she would “never forget the sight or the smell of my house and possessions all going up in flames”.

“I never thought I’d be combing through the ashes of my life to save the smallest things,” she said, adding she had spent time living in her car as she struggled to find a new home.

Sinclair’s lawyer, Jeremy Karitzis, told the court his client’s offending was the product of a combination of neglect and abuse which limited his moral culpability.

Sinclair received “daily beatings” and he often sought refuge in neighbour’s yards.

He described his childhood as a “fight to survive” and had a fear of abandonment, Mr Karitzis said.

Sinclair, who appeared bearded and nursing a broken collarbone, had a functional intellectual disability and had been diagnosed with ADHD and complex-PTSD, the court heard.

At the age of 12 Sinclair was using cannabis, a habit that escalated to harder drugs such as ice, GHB and xanax.

Sinclair will be sentenced on October 17.

Originally published as Nathan Sinclair pleads guilty to arson, property damage threats