WARNING: confronting and distressing content. Your mental health matters.
In a harrowing report, NSW police allege a father has set fire to his home with his partner and seven children inside in a domestic violence incident that rattled a community in the early hours of Sunday morning.
“Dad tried to kill us,” one survivor is reported to have told rescuers. He recounted trying to break free from his father’s grip to try and save their brothers and sisters left inside the burning house. Sadly three children perished in the blaze.
The fire is believed to have started at 12.55am on Sunday after Dean Heasmen, the father of seven, allegedly set a pillow on fire and hurled it as his defacto partner. The fire took hold of their family home in Lalor Park which eventually claimed the life of three of his children – a 10-month-old girl and two boys aged 3 and 6. Both boys were given CPR at the scene and the little girl was found after the fire had been extinguished.
The man’s defacto partner and 4 children – three brothers aged 4, 7 and 11, and their 9-year-old sister escaped the burning home managed to escape after hero neighbour Jarrod Hawkins broke down the door to the property. They are now being treated for their injuries at Sydney’s Westmead Hospital.
Heasman has been placed in an induced coma until his body can begin to recover. Until then NSW Police are not able to interview him until he regains consciousness, if at all.
Close Knit Community Shattered
Neighbours In Shock at House Fire
Neighbours of the Lalor Park family are in shock following the events on Sunday. An elderly neighbour was among the first to spot the blaze and alert first responders, who arrived on scene within six minutes. His son raced out and saw flames in the windows but didn’t realise there were people inside.
“I’m just a bit shocked now that I … I just found out about the kids, you know?” he said. “I wouldn’t have stood around like an idiot; I would have bolted across there.” The Sydney Morning Herald Reports.
Another neighbour said the couple had been fighting but it was beyond shocking it could end with three dead.
While police say the man had no criminal record, they confirm they did attend the property to perform a ‘welfare check’ last week. He is currently in an induced coma and is expected to be charged when he wakes up. NSW Police are treating this as a domestic violence incident.
NSW Premier Chris Minns said the 28-year-old man will be hit with ‘the most serious charges on offer.”
Neighbour Tried To Help, Branded Hero
Neighbour Jarrod Hawkins is heartbroken at the loss of three young lives. When he heard ‘popping’ sounds and realised his neighbour’s house was on fire, he rushed to help.
“It sounds silly, I didn’t even think about it — I just sprinted straight over, kept smashing down the front door until I could get in,” he told ABC TV.
Acting on instinct, he sprinted over, and smashed the door until he gained access. He could hear the kids coughing and followed the noise until he found them. He pulled one child out and immediately went back in for another one, and another one until emergency services arrived on the scene.
“The front door was locked, but I kept shoulder-barging it until I smashed it in,” Mr Hawkins told the Sydney Morning Herald.
“There was too much smoke, I couldn’t see a thing.”
Jarrod has started a GoFundMe to help the 29-year-old mum and her surviving children get back on their feet. At the time of writing, Jarrod has raised over $18,000 for the family.
“We are looking for donations for a very young family that survived a house fire and lost everything they had,” Hawkins wrote on the page.
Father refused help to escape the burning house
In what is probably the most tragic part of this entire situation, Dean Heasman, the man police allege is responsible for setting the house on fire, was actively trying to prevent help from saving him and his children.
It was reported he dragged his kids back into the blaze after they had been helped by neighbours. And when first responders and the police turned up, he actively tried to prevent them from accessing the house.
NSW Police Homicide Squad Superintendent Danny Doherty said, “We’re alleging that a 28-year-old man took direct actions to prevent the rescue of those young lives.”
“There were direct actions taken … that were intentional of keeping police, other first responders and neighbours out of the property while it was on fire,” he said at a press conference.
A neighbour said they were woken by screaming and witnessed the father trying to drag the children back inside as he screamed “Leave me here to die.”
Mother returns to the house to inspect floral shrine
The mother has returned to the home just hours after being released from hospital. Accompanied by her parents, police closed the street down while she took some time to inspect the shrine of flowers and gifts left at the scene.
Another shocking domestic violence case
What happened on Sunday was heartbreaking and beyond comprehensible. Our hearts go out to the families affected by this tragedy.
One young mum now faces the unimaginable task of burying three of her children and helping her surviving children cope with the trauma that they’re facing. She must also find time to heal herself.
Her extended family and friends will grieve and support her, while neighbours deal with the shock, and some say they may even move away because it’s too painful to stay.
First responders, who often see the worst days of people’s lives, will also struggle to process this senseless event. The alleged actions of one person have caused immense pain and will have long-lasting effects.
What We Say, And How We Say It Matters
I don’t know about you, but it’s exhausting to live as a woman in this country and be afraid to turn on social media, or the news, for fear of seeing another headline reporting a woman’s (or her children’s) death at the hands of someone known to them.
By the end of April, eleven more women had been killed than the same time last year. The fact that any woman is dying, violently, at the hands of someone they trusted is infuriating, devastating and disheartening.
More often than not, when a tragedy like this happens, major news outlets will report and almost always you’ll read one of the following:
- ‘just snapped’
- ‘so nice’
- ‘good neighbour’
- ‘didn’t see this coming’
- ‘love their family’
- ‘didn’t seem the type’
- ‘no warning signs’
Statements like these, written about the perpetrator, only illicit sympathy for a person who has committed a heinous crime.
Statements like these make it seem like a one-off incident, not a pattern of behaviour that has escalated over time.
Statements like these lessen the devastating impact domestic violence has on our communities and our country.
Statements like these draw trolls into the comments who blame women for the things done to them.
Statements like these, are killing women.
I don’t know what it will take for the Federal Government to stop sitting on their hands and do something tangible. You can offer all the grants and crisis payments in the world, but more needs to be done. We need comprehensive education and awareness about this issue starting at school. These attitudes are learned behaviour. It’s systemic. It’s insidious. It starts young.
We need proper, harsher punishments for perpetrators. We need better protections for victims.
In 2014, after several news-grabbing deaths of men as a result of a ‘coward’s punch’, new legislation was introduced to impose tough penalties for offenders convicted of this type of attack. Between 2014 and 2018, these attacks dropped by 50%.
Australia is the world’s first nation to put the time, effort and research into these attacks as a means of prevention
Why can’t women get the same prevention and protection?
If you or anyone you know needs help, please contact:
- Suicide Call Back Service on 1300 659 467
- Lifeline on 13 11 14
- Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander crisis support line 13YARN on 13 92 76
- Kids Helpline on 1800 551 800
- Beyond Blue on 1300 224 636
- Headspace on 1800 650 890
- ReachOut at au.reachout.com
- MensLine Australia on 1300 789 978
**In an emergency, call 000.
