‘Jealous’ ex burns down ex-partner’s Waikato rental after finding out she was seeing someone else

Carroll appeared in Hamilton District Court today to be arraigned on charges of arson and unlawful possession of a firearm, and through his lawyer Kerry Tustin, fought to avoid jail time.

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

After reading this, he immediately left his property in Huntley and drove to her rental property.

He went inside through the unlocked door and began pouring a plume of gasoline out of the bedroom and down the hall.

Then he set it on fire.

Carroll then tried to call the victim twice without success before texting her to come before he was completely burnt out.

He left, drove to a relative’s house, got the gun and ammunition, and sent her images and messages.

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

The children then feared they would never see their father again, leading to tears and anger because they loved their dad, she said.

Their behavior has improved, which she attributes to the fact that they can still see Carroll.

Carroll’s lawyer, Kerry Tustin, said her client’s mental health was “very poor” at the time, after which he was admitted to the Henry Bennett Center at Waikato Hospital.

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

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

Carroll agreed to a sentence in July, so today Tustin was trying to get as big a discount as possible (a total of 60%) to keep him out of jail.

It was for RJ, remorse, “onerous” bail conditions, participation in the ManUp program and an offer of restitution totaling $20,000, $1,500 of which will be paid today and another $1,000 within a month. The rest will be paid in two-week increments of $200.

She also insisted on looking at the effect of a prison sentence on his children, but Judge Tini Clarke said she had to balance that against his offending, which he now wants to profit from.

Tustin said it would be better for the community to have Carroll in the community, able to work and pay restitution to victims, than to put a person who has not previously offended in prison.

“The driving force is envy and revenge”

Judge Clark praised Carroll’s ex-partner for forgiving their children despite not having insurance.

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

The total loss was $543,411.25, not including the weeks current rental, which they lost $814 in two weeks.

She accepted that Carroll’s mental health problems were real at the time and contributed to the arson, but she believed “jealousy and retribution … were the driving force behind the crime”.

Judge Clarke said the photo, which shows him with the gun and the message, appeared to suggest Carroll was laying the blame for the fire at the victim’s feet.

She reminded Carroll that it’s “perfectly acceptable” for people to break up and move on with someone else, and they shouldn’t have to suffer the same consequences.

However, she was unimpressed by his comments at the RJ conference that he “didn’t mean to do what he did.”

“It was not a random event where something outside of Mr. Carroll’s control happened and that caused the fire damage,” adding that he appeared to play down what he had done.

“Whether he went there with the intention of setting the house on fire or not, he did it, on purpose, and everyone should suffer the consequences for that.

“It goes some way to Mr. Carroll’s level of remorse.”

She agreed to a total of 55% reduction, reducing his sentence to 23 months, and then agreed to commute it to 11 months of house arrest.

Judge Clarke also sentenced him to 200 hours of community service and told him “it wasn’t good enough” to let his problems get to him and act the way he did and then expect everyone to forgive him.

“You need to compensate your children a little.”

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