However, about 6.30pm he arrived at her front door, as they were about to head out. He was armed with the fire extinguisher which he'd filled with petrol.
He immediately sprayed it all over the victim, with petrol also getting on her two friends.
The victim turned and run away, but Hayward ran after her into the house as the petrol burned her eyes and skin. She headed towards the bathroom and her 12-year-old daughter appeared. She was also sprayed.
Hayward then grabbed the victim by the hair and dragged her into the kitchen where he demanded all their cellphones and told them not to try and call the police.
He then pulled out a lighter, lit it, and while holding it up, walked towards the victim as the others stood close by.
The victim's daughter sprinted off, jumping out a window to a neighbours and called police.
After a few more seconds, Hayward extinguished the lighter flame.
When spoken to by police, Hayward said he was angry that his partner didn't want to see him and he'd wanted to hear her decision face to face.
Hayward's counsel Roger Laybourn said his client had told probation that what he did "was really stupid behaviour".
"Which could be seen as an understatement," he told Judge Anthony Snell this afternoon.
He said his client suffered from depression and anxiety and was aggrieved that his former girlfriend had begun using methamphetamine [P] and was now addicted.
"He made attempts to persuade her not to, it led to arguments, it led to lies, it led to the breakdown of their relationship. And he on this particularly day made the foolish decision to try and frighten her to get her attention ... and get her to wake up ... there's very little logic in that.
"The ludicrous thing of course is all he did was expose her to a terrifying experience."
However, Hayward, who has 35 previous convictions for drugs, dishonesty and driving offences, was extremely remorseful for what he did, he said.
Judge Snell said not only had the victims been left fearing for their lives, but it had an ongoing effect on her daughter.
"Her daughter has been emotionally traumatised and shaken up by the incident and that is completely understandable. She was frightened to be in her own home for a lengthy period of time."
In sending Hayward to prison, Judge Snell took into account the level of pre-meditation involved and that there was both actual and threatened violence.
"The very fact of spraying them with petrol and keeping on spraying them ... would be frightening enough. But you went the extra step of getting out the lighter, lighting the lighter and advancing towards them once they had been doused in petrol.
"You were a fraction of a step away from either accidentally or deliberately engulfing them in flames."
Hayward was jailed for two years and three months.
