Dispute over sex services led Jenny Hayes to light fire that killed young family

The timeline of events leading up to a sex worker’s decision to torch a Point Cook home as a young couple and their newborn slept inside have been revealed.

A sex worker who lit a fire in a family home over $180 in stolen cash snapped photos of the blaze as a young couple and their 19-day old baby girl burned inside.

Jenny Hayes set a mattress on fire inside a Point Cook townhouse after a client fled, taking cash from her amid a dispute over sex services, in the early hours of December 2, 2020.

Immediately after lighting the fire, footage played to the Supreme Court showed Hayes walking outside through a sliding door and taking photos of the blaze, before driving down the street where she took more pictures at a distance.

“Your house on fire,” she texted a man, who she’d just met at the Totem Way townhouse.

Jenny Hayes pleaded guilty to arson causing death over a fire which killed a young family.

Abbey Forrest, 19, her partner Indi Sohal and their baby daughter Ivy were killed in the fire.

Jenny Hayes sent a series of text messages after lighting the blaze.

“You f**ked with the wrong person dickhead.”

But as she sent the man photos and threats that she would go to police with accusations of rape, a young family of three was burning inside the house she set alight.

Abbey Forrest, 19, Inderpal ‘Indi’ Singh Sohal, 28, and their 19-day old daughter Ivy were asleep in the upper bedroom, where they were found dead from carbon monoxide poisoning.

Indi had given a friend, a man the court on Monday heard was called Aakash Aakash, permission to use the spare downstairs bedroom and left the sliding door unlocked.

Aakash had arranged to meet Hayes, where they agreed he would pay $180 for an hour of sexual services, about 2am on December 2.

But the Supreme Court heard that about 30 minutes into their meeting, Aakash wanted sex again and she refused, before he stole back the $180 cash he had paid her.

Aakash left the townhouse while Hayes repeatedly called and texted him with no answer, about 2.45am.

“I’m going to charge you with rape, you’re going to jail f***er,” she texted.

“I’m setting your house on fire right now,” she wrote, and, “You f***ed with the wrong person”.

The Point Cook scene where the young family died. Picture: David Crosling

CCTV footage was played to the court, showing Hayes set the mattress on fire at 2.53am before walking out the sliding door where she snapped pictures before driving away about 2.56am.

“Your house on fire,” she texted him a minute later, about the same time witnesses described hearing a male voice screaming, “fire, fire”, and, “help, help”.

The court heard that Hayes, in her car, drove around nearby streets as the house burned, taking more photos from a distance.

Just 10 minutes later she was texting other potential clients, sending descriptions of herself with “wild blue hair, eyes, busty, curvy” and confirmed the services she could provide.

Later that morning, Hayes texted a contact in her phone that, “a client took all my money and so I burned his house down”.

“I’m so sick of people thinking they can just do this shit to me and nothing happens to them.

“He took what I had so I took what he had.”

The court heard that when Hayes met Aakash on the street outside the townhouse at about 2am, he told her to keep her voice down because his friends were sleeping upstairs.

Hayes denies that she knew anyone was home.

Abbey Forrest’s family called for justice in Hayes’ sentence. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

Hayes pleaded guilty to three counts of arson causing death after the original murder charges were withdrawn.

Abbey and Indi’s loved ones gave emotional victim impact statements to the court, including Abbey’s five-year-old nephew, Arlo.

“I am sad, I really wanted to play dinosaurs with baby Ivy, but she died,” the little boy said in a statement read out by his mother Emily, Abbey’s older sister.

Arlo had drawn a picture that depicted himself, baby Ivy and a fire.

“Ivy is punching the fire because she was scared,” Emily told the court.

Emily said she was in her 20s and owned a cemetery plot, so one day she could lie beside her younger sister and baby Ivy.

Mother Elizabeth Forrest said she watched her daughter and her partner Indi fall “further and further in love” in the months before their deaths, then become loving parents to their baby girl.

She told the court she thinks of the young family’s last moments, trapped in the burning townhouse, and couldn’t get the vision of them out of her head, “the panic they must have been in”.

“Abbey will never get to be a mum that she longed for, Indi will never get to be a dad that he was so excited to be,” she said.

Indi’s brother-in-law Ratan said an example needed to be set for the future. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

“They wanted four children, but Abbey was only a mother for 19 days.”

Elizabeth said she wanted the three of them back “so desperately, but I know that won’t happen because of Jenny Hayes”.

“Jenny Hayes wanted to destroy something that night and destroy she did – she destroyed a new family … she took my daughter, my granddaughter, my future son-in-law … I will never forgive her for that … She’s broken me.”

Elizabeth said she hadn’t been able to unpack Abbey’s car – Ivy’s baby seat is still inside, with the pram in the back.

Hayes, who has Covid-19, appeared for the court hearing via video link, where her lawyer Theo Kassimatis KC said she was “distressed”.

Justice Elizabeth Hollingworth said she’d put Hayes on mute because she wouldn’t have her “crying, interrupting things”.

“She’s been distressed every single hearing, I’m not stopping this plea hearing because she’s upset and crying,” Her Honour said.

The plea hearing continues this afternoon.

Drone photographs of the damage to the townhouse.

The house burst into flames.

The offence of arson causing death carries a maximum 25 year jail term.

Outside court on Monday, Abbey’s mother and father Elizabeth and Alan Forrest struggled to find the words for Hayes’ actions, calling them “indescribable”.

“She wanted to seek out and destroy and that’s certainly what she’s done,” Ms Forrest said.

“She should be in there, she should be hearing it.”

“We need justice to be done.”

Inderpal’s brother in law, Ratan, said justice needed to be served to set an example.

“I wish we could bring them back, but we definitely want justice for them so it doesn’t happen again in the future,” he said.

“We need to set an example so it doesn’t happen in the future.”

Lawyer and advocate John Herron, whose 25-year-old Courtney daughter was murdered in 2019, said Hayes absence in the courtroom as the family read their impact statements was “unfathomable”.

“Many reasons were given, including that she was stressed by proceedings. Now, the victims here – we don’t get that choice in life because for us it’s a life sentence,” he said.

“But for someone who is the accused, to have that choice, the impact on us listening to that, is unfathomable.”

Standing beside the family outside the court, Mr Herron called Monday’s court proceedings an “unimaginable tragedy”.

“It doesn’t get any worse than this in life.”