Trevor Karlsson, 72, was found guilty of three charges in a NSW District Court judge-alone trial. Photo: Michelle Kroll.
A masked arsonist was left with burns to his forehead after he assaulted a neighbour and set her NSW Far South Coast home ablaze in an alleged “explosion”.
According to a published decision, 72-year-old Trevor Karlsson of Queanbeyan was recently found guilty of three charges at the end of a judge-alone trial by the NSW District Court’s Judge Robert Sutherland SC.
Three years ago, the woman had been living in a cabin in a rural area that bordered a national park between the towns of Tathra and Merimbula, while Karlsson lived nearby.
The woman told the court she had spoken to him about six times while they lived in the area.
She said she woke up in the early hours of 17 July, 2022, and looked out a window to see someone standing next to her car before flames erupted over her vehicle.
She said she ran outside and shouted at the balaclava-clad person, who approached her, grabbed her and knocked her over outside her door while she grabbed a nearby biscuit tin lid and hit them in the head.
The woman said shortly after she was knocked to the ground, there was an “explosion” that shattered nearby glass and caused the person’s balaclava to melt onto their forehead. The attacker then ran off.
Due to their proximity during the wrestle, the woman claimed she recognised it was Karlsson.
“My front door exploded, all the glass exploded, my house is on fire, he set a timer bomb or something,” she was recorded telling a triple zero operator.
“I’m alive.”
Police arrived and found she had scratches, bruises, burns and singed hair. She immediately claimed it was Karlsson who had attacked her.
“We just started fighting for our lives,” she later told police during a walk-through of the scene at her burnt-out cabin.
“As I fell, that panel to my left of where I’m standing just came flying past me with shards of glass and a ball of flames straight into his face.
“His balaclava started to melt onto his face, but I know those steely-blue eyes anywhere.”
Meanwhile, police had gone to Karlsson’s house on the same morning of the fire. They thought there was a strong smell of either kerosene or petrol inside his home and saw he had burns on his forehead.
Karlsson claimed he had spilled fuel while refilling his generator and had also kicked the machine, which caused acid burns to his head.
Police seized a shirt, gloves and a balaclava — the latter of which had holes burned into it — with petrol on them from his home.
A volunteer fire investigator with the NSW Rural Fire Service told the court the blaze started outside the cabin’s door on its veranda.
The investigator also said he found no evidence of an explosion, but noted the ignition of an accelerant such as petrol could give the impression of an explosion.
Judge Sutherland said Karlsson had chosen to represent himself by the trial’s closing submissions and gave “a number of arguments and made a number of assertions not necessarily supported by any evidence”.
Karlsson claimed he arrived after the fire began and tried to rescue the woman from her burning home.
“Ignition has not been proven, accelerant has not been proven, causation has not been proven, intent has not been proven. What remains is suspicion elevated to theory. That is not enough,” he claimed in his submissions.
He pleaded not guilty to arson, assault and arson with the intent to endanger life, but was found guilty of all three charges.
“There is no reasonable hypothesis other than he had attended the scene equipped with a means of disguise, the portable means of ignition, and the circumstances are consistent with him having had close interaction with an accelerant, as revealed by the presence of accelerant on items of his clothing,” Judge Sutherland said.
“There is no doubt, and I accept, that he pushed her to the ground. He was in possession of the lighter and I am satisfied that in the circumstances attending the physical interaction, he caused the fire to start.”
The matter will return to court on 28 April to obtain a sentencing date.
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