Inside the mind of an arsonist: What motivates someone to start bushfires? | Australian Story

[Music] trying to apprehend an arsonist is extremely difficult [Music] only 1% of arsonists are actually detected [Music] traditionally they're very versatile criminals they are furtive and I think sometimes they set out to kill in fact sometimes they do Black Saturday was a day of horrendous fires throughout Victoria [Music] 173 people died on Black Saturday eleven people died in Churchill it's one of the investigations I'll never forget I've been removed the arson squad for a number of years but this is the biggest and probably the most memorable one that the one that will stay with me forever I instantly thought how could anybody do this it seemed incomprehensible to me that somebody could deliberately light a fire so the question that I asked myself was what makes an arsonist [Music] who would do this and why [Music] we now know from satellite evidence that there are 4,500 fires per week in Australia and 40% of them are deliberately lit [Music] I think that if you don't look closely at this story and and don't examine all of the parts then you miss an opportunity to understand why these fires are occurring [Music] Churchill is in Victoria's Latrobe Valley in the foothills of the stress Leki's this country was incredibly conducive to an out-of-control feral fire especially with gale force winds and a temperature of 46 degrees [Music] well in the week before it was really caught the head we'd had some fairly hot dry weather we had some pre-planning meetings and so we were all really quite prepared for Black Saturday when it actually turned into a Friday [Music] we had a number of fairly small fires earlier in the day which we dealt with and then we got the call to the Glen Donald Road for and as soon as we turned around and saw the smoke in the sky when you is going to be horrible absolutely horrible you know what the other one atmosphere of fire in the pine plantation me a curb truth FairPoint plantation behind your property no long then download is that where it is just over on the hill to the west of us there was a cloud brewing and I said I'll look the subtly changes here that's good and nothing the Sun said that's not that's not a Claire that's smoke that happened so quickly on that day within a minute of my wife saying a little plume of smoke it was a raging bushfire [Music] the smoke was like an atomic explosion I then looked across into the gully up here and it was probably the most evil thing I've ever seen it was just a searing red mess flames going in all directions and I thought if that's how I've seen it and also run boy run then I ran [Music] we were sitting there and rich didn't know anything was happening a neighbor he came up the hill and said look there was a fire here and you have to get out in a hurry she and her husband Bill got their dogs and very little else [Music] as they were leaving their son Colin pulled up the drive and bill fought with him with some ferocity to try to get him off the block he couldn't change his son's mind and left [Music] colin was shortly joined by his brother david we went to stay at David's house and the boys rang up they said well the fire's gone through now everything's okay we're going in to have a rest and we'll be home shortly and he said I love you mum there was then a wind change at about 6:00 p.m. which added a new store of oxygen to this already out of control fire about an hour so later they hadn't arrived home and I said to Bill the boys are dead and he said 'doctor be stupid and I said yes they are they wouldn't leave me this long without telling me that they were safe and I I knew that was they've gone I on you at nine o'clock they've gone my neighbors said the house imploded you eleven people were killed in the blaze at Churchill in Gippsland to make matters worse police suspect arsonists have again been at work instigating the possibility that that person is responsible for the Churchill fire [Music] I got called in to probably the most confronting briefing I'll ever get or remember an ashen face Detective Sergeant delivering that briefing to us and it wasn't as if we knew what to do there's no training that can prepare you for receiving that news so it did take us a little bit of time to come up with a plan the hunt for the arsonist suspected of being involved in the country's worst natural disaster is in full sweetie [Music] - actually apprehend an arsonist you need a team of diligent skillful arson detectives a lot of devastations review admit the arson chemist George Sidious and we were able to identify the area where the fire occurred and from that examination reliable identified to cease fire [Music] it all came back to this one area here on this side of the track the other point of origin was just at the intersection here one point of origin you can say possibly accidental but certainly to two distinct locations it's not that was what led them to be positive somebody had deliberately lit the fire we became aware of brendon cyclic existence on the Wednesday following Black Saturday and then throughout that night we gathered quite a bit of evidence which which tended to make the case against Brendon stronger and stronger yesterday afternoon police arrested a 39 year old Gippsland man the accused can now be identified as Churchill man Brendan Sokka luck luck luck is accused of deliberately lighting the fire I Drive to Churchill to have a look around I suppose I was looking for some clue as to who he was and why if the police were right he had done this this is Brendan's house obviously it's abandoned now there were clues there as to why someone might have lit a fire when the police came to arrest him they found a private junkyard his neighbors told the police that he had a habit of lighting a lot of fires in his back garden on New Year's Eve some people at a party observed a fire that was they they claimed about five feet high on the morning of Black Saturday Brendon went with his father on a shopping trip they led some bets at the TOB and they stopped at Kentucky Fried Chicken [Music] as they drove home they saw the local CFA responding to a grass fire and stopped to watch [Music] Brendan dropped his father back at his parents home [Music] Brenden then bought some cigarettes that was at 1:16 p.m. he drove along Glenn Donald Road and then went off the actual road and onto an access track next to a eucalyptus plantation 13 hours 32-minute we did the Fargo please at some point he contacted triple oh okay yeah big I have been notified like that and hopefully and get there soon as possible just grab your name and number for good Brenden returned home he spent the rest of the afternoon standing on the roof of his house watching the fire as it progressed [Music] he then walked back into the fire zone the fire front created a fireball and I came straight over the top of the house Brendan walked down this driveway and my son met him somewhere around here Liam said to me don't you think it's strange that someone would come down a driveway in the middle of a fire carrying a dog and I said well that is a bit strange [Music] he turned up and offered to assist inserting himself into the story not as the perpetrator but as the hero who comes to save the day like many arson cases this was a circumstantial case there was no one witness who saw Brendan in the bush leaning down and lighting a fire all in all there are about 160 witnesses who had something to do with Brendan's movements on the day and every one of them in a chain delivered a very very strong circumstantial case that Brendan do you agree that you apply Stanley were arrests by the policeman and I formed it you're not obliged to decide to do anything that anything you say will do may be given in evidence do you remember that not much okay do you remember that I told you what a [ __ ] that you're under arrest for so here's the battery on the suit there's not very many to see when Paul Burton cello and his colleagues arrested Brendan they felt very early on that Brendan was putting on a kind of act of the village idiot to try to disrupt the interview process what's your full name Berlin's Joe Chocolat what does the J stand for can't remember he told us that he was responsible for starting the fire but it was an accident no smoking then and a bit of the cow thing fell off onto the floor so you should be the paper pick it up and and not Jim properties like squish it outs off and when I throw the paper right up ignite it I didn't know it's too late like anything left the area I thought supply I did it back thin spits [ __ ] better Brendan did you mean to like the fire but not mean to hurt people I didn't mean any of this to happen oh I thought it was out when I threw it out the patron share at the window I had no intention for this all to happen now I've got a pull up first in life makes me sad one of the few facts that we had in our position at that time was that there were two points of origin that made the entire investigation are deliberately lit fire know him making an admission or a confession of sorts to starting one of those fires didn't account for the other fire you know this area this where I flew my piece of pipe out the window where did he get that in this area here somewhere show me exactly where you think Brendan was to later admit to having started the fire to his father on the telephone did you do it or not I don't think I did it mainly is a bit more of an accident it was well you mean it was a more of an accident well as far as I know bit of pipe was acting before throw that car window it's been ignored acuity but I don't think wouldn't Brendan so clock was charged with ten counts of arson causing death at that time I was working at more legal aid and the managing lawyer at the time came in and says well they've arrested somebody for Black Saturday you're the barrister let's go to court so we did Selena Mac record was perhaps the one person in that town who was prepared to show him support and act as his voice when I first met Brendan it was obvious to me that he was really operating on a different plane he was this man charged with obviously a very very serious set of offences and his reaction to that was very blunted [Music] brennon I think was always a loner he wasn't a normal kind of kid and he wasn't accepted by the community people felt no shame calling him a [ __ ] or a veggie [Music] Brendan did suffer a significant amount of bullying and it got to a point where it could only be described as extreme so here were his parents collecting him from the bus his covered in faces sometimes it's covered in speech he was around on a regular basis [Music] Brenden left high school in year 11 and it was unclear whether he could read or write he joined the Churchill CFA there were suspicions that Brendan was appearing at fires he couldn't have known about and that he was perhaps deliberately lighting them he wasn't in the brigade for very long he was eventually removed from the the brigade [Music] after high school brendan was hired as a assistant groundsman at the local universities campus under a disability scheme I said to Brenda my one occasion what we're working away you know it's I'm too dumb to me and he goes oh all right he said and he said sometimes I've got to be assessed and he said you go in there and you slobber and you dribble and talk rubbish and I think you you're worse than what you are he said so I get a little benefits that way Brenden claims that he was treated as the punching bag his colleagues claim that he was incredibly difficult it's very difficult to say whether or not Brendan was a victim or a menace Brennan's ability to hold down a job was hampered by the fact that he was dealing with other individuals who had no education or understanding of how to deal with someone with special needs one of the key things to understand about brendan is that after his arrest he was diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum with a borderline intellectual disability the first person to be charged over the bushfires has appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates Court strong public emotion over the fires ensured there was huge interest in today's hearing Brennan has always maintained that he did not deliberately start the fire the prosecution case was that there were definitely two points of admission which were deliberately met he presented in court very much like a child of eight or nine years of age or even younger there was a warring narrative that took place during this trial on one hand there was this cunning serial offender and on the other this hapless knife caught up in events beyond his control and I think that it's entirely possible that both of those versions were true during the investigation it was my job to contact family members of deceased people I had one phone with 30 messages saying that he's not guilty and another phone with 30 messages saying he's guilty when the verdict was read out and he was guilty I was tremendously relieved to be able to press the send button on the on the phone [Music] I'm not afraid to say I've said it here when the verdict was read out throughout the sentence cyclic scribbled on a piece of paper seemingly oblivious to what was going on in court Annie wore a puzzled expression as he learned he'll spend at least the next 14 years in jail the assembled barristers and solicitors went to visit him in the cells and he hadn't realized that he'd just been found guilty he was still asking them when he was going to be able to go home and see his dog I understand that they left in tears each one of the counts of arson causing death was punishable by a maximum sentence of 25 years imprisonment as a result of the disabilities which Brendan suffered from he was sentenced to 17 years and 9 months with an on parole period of 14 years I thought it was pretty life considering he'll be out in another four years my observations of that sentence was that it was extraordinarily fair I'm sure that he did not intend that anyone should die I still personally cannot say for sure whether Brendan maliciously lit those fires with the intent of cause as much damage as he did [Music] the effect that the fires had on people's livelihood really was that their livelihoods were decimated a lot of farming country was destroyed a lot of stock was lost that resulted in well really what can only be described as a depression of sorts in this area while industry will recover to a certain extent I wonder really if the victims of that fire will ever recover meeting Shirley Gibson for the first time was daunting babies well the scale of her loss seemed so great I thought I was pretty weak and I thought about it I thought no I'm pretty strong you know I've got there it's taken a long long while but I've got there over a period of time I thought about Brendan he didn't really mean to kill my boys he didn't mean to kill any of those people I can understand now what's happened and there are people a lot worse off than I am I know now that I have forgiven him I in my own heart I know I've forgiven him and I know if I met him I would probably even shake his hand some people I think forgive him to a certain degree others will never forgive him for what he did considering that he never ever said he was sorry and never ever said that he actually did it and you I'll never forgive him I hope he doesn't come back here breeze I'm safety and I don't ever want to see him again [Music] the only way is to prevent bushfires rather than responding after the fact after the deaths after the destruction after Black Saturday we set up the National Center for Research in bushfire and arson we knew that there was really no way of reducing or preventing bush fires unless we dealt with the human element what we needed to do was to engage the community to get them to support reporting arsonists in their community what can we do about the arsonist the individual who is lighting fires and what kind of person are we dealing with I would say that Brendon does fit the profile of an arsonist a lone male arsonist who is older wears a community need to help one another learn what those clues are so that the next time we've got a Brendon in our midst this information can be passed through to you guys over the next four years we are going to have a heat wave globally it's getting more dangerous the more dangerous it becomes the greater likelihood we have that when a match is lit it'll take so we've got to focus on primary prevention the only way we can stop the Brendon's of this world from continuing to light fires is to bring them in for intervention and treatment before they struck the first match Brennan's sock lock is a product of the community that he grew up in a community that had very little understanding of people with autism or other mental health issues could it be that he lit this fire to revenge those who'd thought he was a [ __ ] and a veggie and then to be the hero who saves them if he had have had more support when he was growing up things may have ended very differently it's very easy to say he did it bang him up let's fix that problem hang on what are we building another one you also got to say why why did that happen now let's deal with the why and we might actually prevent the next one from happening you

Channel: ABC News In-depth

Views: 204,444

Keywords: Australia, Brendan Sokaluk, Black Saturday, bushfires, fires, arson, Churchill, bushfire season, Shirley Gibson, Paul Read, arson detectives, psychology, Victorian Police, autism, The Arsonist, Chloe Hooper, exclusive

Id: qJq1UolgPBw

Length: 29min 37sec (1777 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 11 2018