Restaurateur jailed over lies, dog death

He turned off the CCTV in the Sydney restaurant Essenza, lit 50 tea candles, dressed up as a home invader and stabbed himself in the back twice.

Having also used paper to set alight clothes he'd worn, flames spread to and ignited chemicals under a staircase and caused the fire to spread throughout the historic building in Surry Hills.

"A man broke into the restaurant and stabbed me, I woke up and there was a fire," he told police as he was wheeled into an ambulance.

In formal police interviews, the venue manager even pointed the finger at a sacked employee, whose home was searched by police.

But unlike Ziotas, the DNA didn't lie.

The remorseful and ashamed 38-year-old was jailed on Wednesday for at least four years for the July 2019 fire and elaborate lies he told to authorities.

To this day, the offender was unsure why he thought it was a good idea to light up the restaurant and upstairs apartment, Sydney District Court Acting Judge Paul Conlon said.

Ziotas had accepted financial gain was a motivation but the court had no direct evidence how that would be realised.

Prosecutors pointed to the gambling debt and submitted the plan was sophisticated.

Judge Conlon disagreed, finding Ziotas's thinking at the time was "confused and chaotic".

The offender had made several earlier suicide attempts but settled on staging a home invasion murder in July 2019 under a misguided belief it was the only way his superannuation would be paid out to his partner.

He told his partner so in a prison phone call after she told him: "Someone who is suicidal ... they don't stab themselves in the back."

"His decision making was, in my view, clearly impaired," the judge said.

Judge Conlon knocked back comparisons to the firebombing campaign waged by construction company boss Bill Issa in 2013, classing Ziotas's extraordinary lengths to pervert the course of justice about the mid range for such offences.

Ziotas had pleaded guilty to perverting the court of justice and dishonestly damaging property by fire for gain.

He also asked the court to take into account an animal cruelty offence after the fire caused the smoke inhalation death of Lexie Lou.

The six-year-old kelpie was owned by Ziotas's then de facto partner Kate Still, who also owned the restaurant but was out at the time of the fire.

Ms Still, who has continued supporting the offender in custody, said she could only describe the event as a tragedy that had killed her dog, hurt her financially and emotionally, damaged her landlord's lovely building and wasted a mountain of public resources

"There are no winners," she said in a victim impact statement.

"(All) because he couldn't ask for help as he was too proud, too ashamed and, somewhat, too arrogant."

The court was told Ziotas had expressed difficulties with depression, sexual abuse in his childhood home and long-term substance abuse.

He spent four years in jail in the early 2000s after trying to import an illicit substance.

Around the time he began dating Ms Still in 2015, he replaced regular cannabis use with gambling before it grew into a daily habit.

Judge Conlon said the offender had shown genuine remorse and insight into the harm caused and risk posed by his actions.

Ziotas, whose full jail term is seven years, will be eligible for parole in July 2023.

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Australian Associated Press