Man blew up home to spite family
A man who deliberately blew up his ancestral family home with a gas bottle to try to stop his siblings inheriting it has been ordered to pay them more than $100,000 in damages.
Trevor Raymond Seaman, 48, was jailed for more than two years after a court heard how the bitter family dispute which erupted after the death of his father in 2008 came to fiery conclusion in September 2013.
The day after a court hearing confirmed his eviction from the Hovea house he said he built with his father, and shared with his wife and child, Seaman disconnected a 75kg gas bottle, put it in the garage, climbed into a roof space and ignited the gas with a lit piece of paper.
The massive explosion levelled much of the Park Road property but left Seaman with only minor burns, despite him later admitting to police that he wanted to die in the blaze.
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During his sentencing hearing, Seaman admitted that he had started the fire which engulfed the house and caused $350,000 damage.
Sometime after the blaze, his family filed a damages claim for $80,000, asserting that the damage from the explosion reduced the value of the property from $700,000 to $620,000.
From prison, Seaman challenged the claim, saying he still believed the property he had destroyed belonged to him, and it was worth more than $700,000 before the fire.
He told the court he needed continuing treatment for his burns and for post-traumatic stress disorder.
“He described it as a man's castle, a property that had a waterfall, overlooked a dam, had an abundance of nature and a property on which he was building an organic garden that could have been marketed as an organic farm,” Principal Registrar Shane Melville wrote.
Registrar Melville ruled that Seaman should pay $103,188 in damages — $80,000 for the loss of value of the property and $23,188 incurred from demolition works needed after the explosion.
