Werribee woman caught fire after disputeing with the neighbor on music at full volume, the court listens

A neighboring dispute over music at full volume became a street fight where a woman was soaked in flammable liquid and caught fire with a torch, has heard a Victorian court.

On Tuesday, prosecutors said the woman, Sharie Gray, suffered potentially mortal burns of the 2022 incident and still requires continuous medical treatment.

But the man accused of carrying out the alleged attack, Michael Gauci, 45, declared himself innocent of murder attempt and three other positions.

His lawyers told a jury of the Supreme Court who rejected the key aspects of the prosecution and insisted that Mrs. Gray, 34, was “the aggressor” in the fight.

The prosecutor of the crown, Angela Moran, said that the tension between the neighbors exploded on December 27, 2022 when Mrs. Gray and three friends were drinking, singing and playing music at full volume in the backyard of her house in Rivcoast Road in Werribee South.

Mrs. Moran said that Mr. Gauci’s wife asked the group to shut up, before making calls to Mr. Gauci, who returned home early the next morning.

The prosecutor said that security cameras at the Gauci house showed that Mr. Gauci picked up a storm from a kitchen bank, before the security system went out.

A physical fight between Gauci’s partner and Mrs. Gray took place outside, said the prosecutor, before Mr. Gauci allegedly threw a bucket of flammable liquid on Mrs. Gray and turned on the torch.

“The entire head and the upper part of the body (of Mrs. Gray) were on fire, halfway to the mosses area,” said Moran.

The prosecutor said that the friends of Mrs. Gray rushed to her aid, before being taken to Alfred Hospital with 70 percent burns of her body.

Gauci and his family got into their UTE and left the scene, before heading to a local police station.

Mrs. Moran said the officers recovered the torch, an open 10 -liter fuel container and an flammable substance called “Prepwash” of the property of Mr. Gauci.

The jury will have to decide whether Mr. Gauci is guilty of murder attempt or the alternative charge of causing serious injuries. He also declared innocent of reckless conduct positions related to two of the friends of Mrs. Gray.

Defensor lawyer John Korn said his client denied having held the torch during the street fight, and instead said he was holding a rifle.

Korn said that Gauci threw the fluid bucket in the direction of Mrs. Gray in an attempt to avoid attacking her wife, who had been immobilized on the ground in a physical mismatch.

“He threw a bucket that had liquid, which he never believed, never suspected, never considered something dangerous,” Korn said.

Korn told the jury that he intended to interrogate witnesses during the trial, that “he would paint a very different image” of the incident.

The trial, before Judge Andrew Tinney, continues.