A teen accused of setting fire to a factory on orders of a prisoner says he did not realise two people were sleeping at the back when he lit the blaze.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen, it was just a mistake, wrong place, wrong time,” Phoenix Darren John Tims was later caught on a surveillance device telling his girlfriend.
Father-of-three Hai, 42, and a 48-year-old man died in the February 23 blaze at a Sunshine North panel shop, after it spread to a converted factory.
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Tims, 19, and co-accused Atem Akoi Thon, 19, faced Melbourne Magistrates Court on Thursday where they both applied for bail.
Each of them were charged with two counts of arson causing death more than four months after the deadly blaze.
Police told the court the pair were offered $4000 by a prisoner to commit the arson.
Semaj Cigobia, 18, has been accused of assisting the pair in avoiding police detection by burning the car alleged to have been used in the offending.
Detective Senior Constable Elise Jinks alleged Tims drove to the factory, jumped over a fence with a red jerry can of petrol and set it alight.
She claimed Thon handed Tims the jerry can.
The pair were going to be paid $4000 by a prisoner to carry out the arson, she told the court on Thursday.
“They were tasked by someone who is in prison and we haven’t been able to identify who that is,” she said.
Jinks said the price was relatively low considering two people lost their lives.
Tims was recorded on surveillance inside his car admitting much of the arson, including in a mid-July conversation with his girlfriend, the court was told.
“I did everything, I drove, I lit it up, I stopped, I got out, I jumped a fence,” he said, in recordings read to court.
“It’s for a job … for a buddy.”
Jinks said she had spoken to the family of the two victims ahead of the bail applications and they would be incredibly disappointed if Tims and Thon were released.
Lawyers for the two teens argued they should be freed on bail due to their young age, as they’re both first time offenders and due to delays that could prevent the case going to trial for up to two years.
Prosecutor Angela Liantzakis opposed bail as the offending was “extraordinarily serious conduct for low money”.
Family members of the two accused told the court they would safely house each Tims and Thon and report them to police if they breached bail.
Thon’s sister said she wanted him to do the right thing and follow the law.
Tims’ girlfriend’s mother said she was “shocked” upon hearing about the offending, but planned to financially support him as he has lost employment and already looked after his one-year-old.
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Two youth justice workers said, while Tims and Thon were eligible for supervised bail, their risk of reoffending due to the seriousness of the accusations and negative peer association made them unsuitable.
Magistrate Malcolm Thomas was critical of the bail assessment, saying it was “extraordinary” that youth justice had found them unsuitable.
He found the prosecution’s case against Thon to “not be the strongest” and said it appeared Tims did not intend to kill two people in the fire.
Liantzakis accepted there was no evidence the pair were aware that two men were sleeping in a factory out the back when the fire was lit.
“But there is that inherent risk to persons surrounded to the area given that fires can easily spread,” she said.
Thomas will hand down his bail decision on Friday.
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