A man has apologised in court for repeatedly attempting to burn down a home after becoming fixated on a baseless notion that a resident there had something to do with the sexual abuse of one of his family members.
Kevin George Fitzpatrick appeared in Newcastle District Court on Thursday, ahead of sentencing next week for charges of damaging property by fire and assault occasioning actual bodily harm - to which he pleaded guilty last year.
Fitzpatrick said his time at court-ordered residential drug rehabilitation "did make me ashamed for what I had done in the past".
"I wish I could turn time back and change it, but I can't. But I have to live with that. I'm very shameful of my actions.
"My biggest apologies go to her [the owner of the property damaged by fire]. I'm sorry to put her in any danger."
Fitzpatrick first went to the Wallsend home in May 2020, telling a man who answered the front door that he was looking for someone who had "molested" one of his family members.
The man said he did not know what Fitzpatrick was talking about and the offender eventually left.
Fitzpatrick went back to the house the following month and punched the same man as he answered the door, before immediately leaving. Three days later, he returned and set fire to the door.
The couple moved out of the home as a result of the incidents.
Then, in July, Fitzpatrick returned again - this time with a jerry can - and poured fuel onto a car owned by the couple's former landlord, a woman who still lived at the premises, and set it alight. The vehicle was destroyed and a carport was severely damaged.
In the early hours of July 30, 2020, he returned a final time and set fire to a boarded-up window at the property using a jerry can.
Fitzpatrick remains on bail, granted after his time in rehabilitation. He will be sentenced next Thursday afternoon.
