An evicted tenant who inflicted a series of firebombing attacks against her ex-housemates and landlord has been jailed for at least four years.
Tsai-Wei Hung, 33, pleaded guilty at the Victorian County Court to four counts of arson and a string of other offences including reckless conduct endangering serious injury, burglary and property damage.
After being evicted in March 2024, Hung embarked on a “terrifying vendetta” over three months, judge Carolene Gwynn said in sentencing on 4 February.
It started with throwing eggs and used her car to ram her former home’s garage door in Clyde North in March 2024.
She also drove her car dangerously at her former landlord and a tenant, while she crashed through bollards and chased them across a lawn. She later told police that she “wanted to scare them”.
Three months later, she set alight plastic bottles of fuel at the front door of her former home in Clyde North and later at her landlord’s home in Berwick.
In between those attacks, she demanded $30,000 from the landlord – her extortion attached to threats to him and his family.
She also destroyed two of her ex-housemates’ cars parked in the street, by pouring accelerant over the cars and lighting “match after match until you managed to set fire to each car”.
“You clearly aimed to cause maximum damage and you did so,” Judge Gwynn said, also laternoting the unpredictability and inherent dangerousness of fire.
At 4.30am in the morning, Hung arrived at the landlord’s house and threw a bottle of petrol at the front door. There were seven occupants in “harm’s way” including his wife, children, mother-in-law and sheltering victims of the Clyde North arson.
The landlord opened the door, smelt petrol and quickly closed the door as Hung tried to light a match.
“Go to hell,” she yelled in Mandarin as she started the fire – which quickly went out by itself on the concrete.
“It’s more by good fortune rather than good management by you that not more harm was caused,” Judge Gwynn said.
Hung fled the scene in a rental car – which she later sold for $8900 on Facebook Marketplace.
Her “sheer anger” and “overtly destructive behaviour” was cause for concern, as was the targeted, persistent and escalation of the vendetta and its risk to others, Judge Gwynn said.
During her ongoing animosity to her victims, her “wrath” seemed to “bubble and fester”. Even being interviewed by police didn’t seem to give Hung pause, Judge Gwynn said.
Nor did the personal safety intervention orders that were issued to protect the victims from her.
Hung claimed that she had been abused and assaulted by her victims prior to her eviction. Judge Gwynn did not make a factual finding on this claim.
Nine victims tendered victim impact statements, many of whom were seeking mental health support due to the trauma.
Hung was sentenced as a serious arson offender due to her multiple arson offences.
The Taiwanese national who was in Australia on a working visa had no prior criminal history, was diagnosed with PTSD and persistent depression stemming from childhood.
She had been reportedly assaulted and bullied in remand.
Hung was jailed for up to six years and two months, with a non-parole period of four years.
Her term included 600 days in pre-sentence remand.
