A man who lit a stranger’s house on fire, smashed his windows and laughed while the building was engulfed with flames is not criminally responsible for murder, a court has found.
Cameron Johnston, 49, died from carbon monoxide toxicity on the evening of July 31, 2020 after Harley Thompson, 28, smashed out the windows of his Bomaderry home in southern NSW and threw petrol inside.
Harley Thompson is arrested in 2020 for the murder of Cameron Johnston.Credit:Nine News
Thompson, who lived nearby, had attended the home twice that evening before he set the fire, shouting abuse and smashing Johnston’s car and the front windows of the house.
Johnston, who was home with his 18-year-old son, called triple zero at 9.03pm and 9.46pm, saying in one of the calls that a “scary” person had “smashed all the windows, nearly” and was shouting “get outside c—.” Both times police arrived, the attacker had already left.
When Thompson attended the home for a third time, at 10:39pm, a panicked Johnston called triple zero again to say the stranger had “chucked petrol through the window”, describing it as a “firebomb” that had lit the entire house on fire.
Firefighters respond to the house fire in Bomaderry in 2020.Credit:Nine News
He said he was trying to hide from the man who set the blaze and didn’t want to go outside because “he’ll kill us”, urging emergency services to hurry.
As an operator urged Johnston to leave the house, he asked how far away the police were. He started to cough and was soon overcome by smoke and no longer able to speak. His son managed to escape the fire with the family dog.
A neighbor told a judge-alone trial in the NSW Supreme Court that he heard Johnston’s son shouting “dad, dad, dad” while Thompson laughed, sounded almost excited, and yelled “burn c— burn”.