A woman and her five-month-old baby daughter had a lucky escape when her estranged husband burned down the house they were living in after threatening to kill them, a court has heard.
Orlando Luciano sent a text message to his estranged wife saying “game on” before setting fire to his in-law’s Mount Macedon home, causing almost $1 million damage.
Luciano was jailed for four years and 10 months with a non-parole period of three years after pleading guilty in the County Court in September 2014 to charges of assault, recklessly causing injury, making a threat to kill and arson.
After appealing against his sentence Court of Appeal Justices Robert Redlich and David Beach found the jail term was justified.
Luciano’s wife of seven years gave birth to a daughter on May 12, 2011. The court heard that 10 days later Luciano tried to take the baby away from her.
‘The appellant [Luciano] lunged at his wife several times saying, ‘Give her to me’. Each time this happened, the wife rolled to one side to protect the child and told the appellant to stop,” the judges said.
At one stage, Luciano’s wife put her foot out to stop him lunging towards her and he punched her legs. The couple separated soon after and the woman took the baby and moved in with her parents at Mount Macedon.
“Following separation, there was ongoing animosity expressed by the appellant to his wife and in early June, when the wife drove off in the family car, the appellant screamed at her, ‘You’re dead’, and made a gesture drawing a finger across his throat,” the judges said.
“Later that day, the appellant told his ex-partner to lock the doors at Mount Macedon.
“He said, ‘I am coming for you, watch your back. You’re all going to pay, every single one of you’.
“He later said, ‘I’ll make you know what it is like to lose somebody’.”
The appeal judges said Luciano’s estranged wife and daughter were at a sleep school on October 6, 2011, while her parents were overseas. Luciano sent her a text at 7.52pm saying, “game on”.
He then made numerous telephone calls to the Mount Macedon house before breaking in to the garage just after 9.20pm and setting it on fire with the petrol he had brought.
The house and garage were extensively damaged in the fire and had to be demolished, while Luciano suffered significant burns in the blaze.
An insurance company later paid out a fire damage claim for more than $929,000.
“In our view, the individual sentences, orders for cumulation, total effective sentence and non-parole period were all entirely appropriate in the circumstances,” the appeal judges said.
This story first appeared in The Age
