Kylie Sheahan’s daughter recalls horror of watching Roland Griffiths pour petrol over her mum’s body, court hears

A teenage girl has recalled the horror of seeing her mum try to stop the flow of petrol moments before her stepfather Roland Griffiths set her ablaze.

Roland Griffiths is accused of murdering his wife Kylie by dousing her in petrol and setting her alight.

A teenage girl has recounted the horror of seeing her mum reach in vain to stop the flow of petrol being poured down her back by husband Roland Griffiths moments before he set her ablaze.

Kylie Sheahan was preparing a family dinner on March 14, 2022 when her daughter recalled seeing her stepfather hold a jerry can higher and higher out of reach over her mother’s body.

“She was trying, like, to stop him ... putting her hands up trying to stop him,” the girl, 16, told his Supreme Court murder trial on Friday.

“He raised it higher, like every time she tried to stop him.”

The teen, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said she grabbed the jerry can out of her stepfather’s hand as he held her mother and a lit cigarette lighter, yelling, “Do you want me to burn it, do you want me to set it alight?”

Then, he touched the flame to the ground.

“Everything kind of flashed”, she recalled, “everywhere I looked was flames”.

The girl, who suffered burns to 53 percent of her body when her socks set on fire, said she rushed outside to safety before climbing back into the burning building to save her baby brother, then climbed in again for her phone to call triple-0.

Kylie Sheahan tried to stop her husband pouring petrol down her back.

Crown prosecutor Erin Ramsay said a fatally wounded Ms Sheahan, with 91 per cent burns, screamed to a neighbour “help my kids!” as Mr Griffiths yelled at her, “why didn’t you stop me ... you should have stopped me ... I should be in jail”.

The girl with burned legs and feet ran to a nearby home while on the phone to triple-0, and as she doused herself with water from a hose, said, “Roland came, he took the hose and started hosing himself”.

He’d suffered less extensive burns, to just 35 percent of his body.

Later, as she sat with her fatally burned mum outside their damaged home, the girl said Mr Griffiths, who had been drinking Jack Daniels and coke all through the day, said to her, “You know I didn’t mean to light it, I didn’t know it was going to go up like that”.

Ms Sheahan died four days later, while her daughter was in hospital for months receiving weekly surgeries.

The girl said weeks before the blaze, she heard her stepfather say, “You know it’s so easy to light you guys up when you guys are asleep”.

When the accused killer, who has pleaded not guilty to murder, was himself released from hospital two months later he told police he’d “heard Kylie screaming — that’s when I went inside”.

“At the time I didn’t realise that there was a fire,” he claimed.

Asked by officers why he said at the crime scene he should be in jail, he replied: “Cos it sounds like I must have f***ed up big time, haven’t I.”

Defence barrister David Brustman KC said the issue in dispute was “that he intended to kill her”.

“There’s intention, then there’s recklessness,” Mr Brustman said.

The trial, before Justice John Champion, continues.