A jury has been shown dramatic mobile phone footage of the Corrimal house fire that killed Wollongong solicitor Katie Foreman.
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Crown prosecutor Chris Maxwell QC played the short video, shot by a neighbour on a mobile phone, on the opening day of the NSW Supreme Court trial of Foreman's alleged killers.
Woonona man Bradley Max Rawlinson, Bernard Justin Spicer, from Whalan, and Michelle Sharon Proud, from Eastern Creek, stand accused of murdering Ms Foreman by setting her Doncaster Street home alight while she was asleep inside, in the early hours of October 27, 2011.
The video showed the two-storey house well alight, with a wall of flames billowing out of the window of the upstairs bedroom and through the roof.
Mr Maxwell said the Crown will allege only moments earlier, Spicer and Ms Foreman's former friend, Wendy Evans, let themselves inside the home with a key and crept upstairs, carrying a bucket of petrol and a fire lighter.
Spicer then emptied the contents of the bucket into Ms Foreman's room before it was set alight, jury members were told.
"A fierce blaze started, in a short space of time it consumed the bedroom," Mr Maxwell said.
Foreman's body was found outside the bedroom, half submerged under a door, he said.
An autopsy concluded Ms Foreman had been "alive and breathing" during the fire but had died of a combination of direct heat injury and smoke inhalation.
Prosecutors allege Rawlinson, Ms Foreman's on-again, off-again boyfriend, colluded with Evans, with whom he was having an affair, to "get rid" of Ms Foreman so they could be together.
The Crown says a series of text messages between Rawlinson and Evans confirms their intimate relationship, and ill-will they harboured towards Ms Foreman.
They included one on October 1, allegedly sent from Rawlinson to Evans, which read: "Yeah, so do I, but just keep thinking: one more week, then she's gone and we are away from her.
Another text he allegedly sent read: "I want to be with you till I die. I hope you understand the various reasons why it has to happen to her now, I love you."
Rawlinson and Evans allegedly enlisted Spicer and Proud in their murder plot, and paid Spicer about $2000 to help carry out the crime.
Rawlinson, Spicer and Proud have each pleaded not guilty to murder. However, Rawlinson yesterday offered to plead guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter.
This plea was rejected by the Crown, as was a similar offer made by Spicer, who said he would admit to a charge of breaking and entering and committing a serious indictable offence.
Evans has already pleaded guilty to murder. The case continues in Wollongong today.