A Belconnen man admitted on Wednesday to setting fire to his partner's house while she slept inside, later telling police he had wanted to take the law into his own hands after she slashed his car tyres.
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The woman escaped the February 6 blaze covered in soot and with red burns to her face, singed hair and eyebrows, while the house was destroyed.
The pair were in a long-term relationship but lived separately because they both have mental illness, court documents suggest.
At an arraignment in the ACT Supreme Court on Wednesday, the man pleaded guilty to arson and an act endangering life.
The case will return to court next year for sentence.
The man, 62, was arrested the afternoon of the fire after a neighbour told police he had made admissions.
Surveillance footage showed the man walk into a nearby Caltex that morning and fill up a jerry can with petrol, court documents say.
He climbed the fence to his partner's backyard in Ranken Place, Belconnen, where he doused the kitchen, the lounge room and the dog kennel in petrol and set it on fire.
He returned to his home across the street from his partner's house, about 300 metres away.
The woman woke up and saw flames and black smoke outside her kitchen window.
"Within seconds the house filled with black smoke and darkness," the court documents say.
She went to the front door but it was locked and she couldn't find the key.
She left out the laundry door but went back inside to find her dog Sooky, before the heat overwhelmed her.
Neighbours started hosing down the flames.
When firefighters arrived the house was "totally engulfed", the documents say.
Police restrained the woman when she tried to run back to the house for Sooky.
She was covered in soot and had red burn marks under both eyes, around her nose and mouth. Her hair and eyebrows were singed.
Police saw a small dog running from nearby units and the woman identified it as Sooky.
The woman took the dog to the man's flat to look after while she went to hospital. She apologised for the tyres, saying she did not like him driving when he did not have a licence.
He later made admissions to a neighbour, saying his life was never going to be the same and that he had done something "really stupid".
He also made admissions to police when he was arrested.
He said he had set the house on fire and while he knew the woman was sleeping inside he was not trying to hurt her.
He said he was upset and angry that his tyres had been slashed, and had called police who knocked on the woman's door but it was not answered.
Police had told him to call mental health but he said he could not get through after several attempts.
At that point he started stewing that she had taken the "law into her own hands" and thought he would do the same, the documents say.
The man is not currently in custody.
The case returns to court on February 8 for sentencing.
