‘Jealous’ ex burns down former partner’s Waikato rental after discovering she’s seeing someone else

Sean Anthony Carroll poured petrol in his former partner's bedroom and down the hallway of the Te Kauwhata home she lived in with their three children before setting it on fire. Photo / 123RF

Warning: This story contains content that may offend.

Receiving an anonymous text that his former long-term partner was seeing someone else was enough to put Sean Anthony Carroll in such a jealous rage that he drove to her property and set it on fire, destroying not only her belongings but those of their children.

Carroll, whose three children also lived in the Te Kauwhata property, then went on to grab a shotgun and send the woman a photo, via text, with the gun pointing at his chin along with the words, “later bro”.

He then unintentionally fired the gun after moving it away from his face, with the bullet firing off inside his vehicle.

Carroll today appeared in the Hamilton District Court where he was sentenced on charges of arson and unlawful possession of a firearm, and through his counsel Kerry Tustin, fought to avoid a jail sentence.

Carroll and the victim had been separated for about four months when he received a text from an unknown sender suggesting that the person was now in a relationship with her.

After reading that, he immediately left his Huntly property and drove to her rental property.

He went inside through an unlocked door and began pouring a trail of petrol from the bedroom and down the hallway.

He then set it on fire.

Carroll then tried twice, unsuccessfully, to ring the victim before texting her to say that she should get there before it fully burned to the ground.

He left, drove to a relative’s property, got the shotgun and ammunition, and sent the image and message to her.

In her victim impact statement, the woman said they lost everything and Carroll’s actions “broke me and it broke our kids”.

The children then feared they would never see their father again, resulting in tears and anger, as they loved their dad, she said.

Their behaviour had improved which she credited to them still being able to see Carroll.

Carroll’s counsel, Kerry Tustin, said her client’s mental health was “very poor” at the time which saw him admitted to Henry Bennett Centre at Waikato Hospital shortly afterward.

He had also attended a restorative justice (RJ) conference with his former partner and the property owners.

The victim said Carroll was usually a hard-working, reliable person and the offending was out of character.

Carroll had accepted a sentence indication in July so today Tustin was trying to push for as many discounts as she could - totalling 60% - to try and keep him out of prison.

That was for RJ, remorse, “onerous” bail conditions, attending a ManUp programme, and an offer of reparation totalling $20,000, $1500 of which would be paid today, and another $1000 within a month. The rest would be repaid at $200 a fortnight.

She also pushed for consideration about the impact a prison sentence would have on his children, but Judge Tini Clark said she had to balance that against his offending which he now wanted to benefit from.

Tustin said the community would be better off having Carroll in the community with the ability to work and pay the reparation to the victims, than putting a man, who has not offended before, in jail.

‘Jealousy and retribution the driving force’

Judge Clark praised Carroll’s former partner for how forgiving she had been for the sake of their children, despite not being insured.

As for the house, the owners had recently renovated it to the tune of $30,000.

The damage totalled $543,411.25, excluding the weeks of ongoing rent they lost at $814 a fortnight.

She accepted Carroll’s mental health struggles were genuine at the time, and were an issue leading up to the arson, however, she considered the “jealousy and retribution ... to be the driving force behind the offending”.

Judge Clark noted that the photo of himself with the gun and message appeared to be Carroll laying the blame for the fire at the victim’s feet.

She reminded Carroll that it was “quite acceptable” for people to break and move on with their life with someone else and they should not have to suffer consequences like this.

However, she was less than impressed with his comments at the RJ conference that he “didn’t intend to do what he had done”.

“This was not an accidental event where something has happened beyond Mr Carroll’s control and damage caused by fire as a result,” adding that it appeared as though he was minimising what he had done.

“Whether he went there with the intention of setting fire to the house or not, that is what he did, intentionally and everyone has had to suffer the consequences because of that.

“It does somewhat affect the level of remorse that Mr Carroll is showing.”

She agreed to issue a total of 55% in discounts, reducing his sentence to 23 months before agreeing to convert it to 11 months’ home detention.

Judge Clark also sentenced him to 200 hours of community work and told him “it wasn’t good enough” to let his issues get on top of him and act out the way he did and then expect everyone to forgive him.

“You have some making up to do in regards to your children.”

Belinda Feek is an Open Justice reporter based in Waikato. She has worked at NZME for nine years and has been a journalist for 20.