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A Perth mother who claims her husband of 11 years set her on fire days after she left him has told a jury she was “disappointed” both the police and Midland Magistrates Court did not give her an emergency restraining order in the hours prior, despite telling them he had threatened to kill her.
Kirsten Moiler, 35, gave evidence in the Perth District Court trial against her husband on Wednesday, detailing years of physical and verbal abuse she alleged was inflicted upon her in the lead-up to the incident in June 2023.
Peter Moiler is accused of setting his estranged wife, Kirsten Moiler, on fire outside their Mount Helena home in 2023.
Peter Moiler denies he set fire to his wife while she sat in her car outside the couple’s Mount Helena home, instead claiming she “did it to herself”.
Moiler, 44, was charged with acts intended to cause grievous bodily harm or prevent arrest after Kirsten was left with partial and full thickness burns to 38 per cent of her body. He denies the allegations.
But on Wednesday, prosecutor Alan Dungey called Kirsten as his first witness, who testified that her marriage had been turbulent and marred by abuse.
The mother-of-three told the court that on one occasion Moiler was “beating my head with a gun” while “my head was bouncing off the inside car door frame”.
On another occasion, she alleged that Moiler “fly kicked” her in the stomach when she was six months pregnant.
She also claimed he once threw her down the stairs while the couple were on holiday, leaving her with multiple bruises. On that occasion, Kirsten called police who gave her a 24-hour “no contact” order to separate the pair.
Kirsten also tearfully recounted a day when she allegedly suffered “a 17-hour ear bashing”, during which she claimed Moiler threw repeated verbal insults at her.
She told the jury on Wednesday she “wrote down on a white board every nasty thing he would say to me”, which she later took a photo of.
That photo was shown to the court, while Kirsten also detailed the litany of insults allegedly hurled at her.
“I learnt that the only way to stop the verbal and physical abuse was to hurt myself then he would stop and become more concerned,” she told the court.
Kirsten outlined another alleged incident while the pair were still married, where she smashed a bottle of perfume into the back of her head to stop a torrent of abuse from Moiler, leading him to calm down and administer first aid.
By mid-2023, however, Kirsten said she started to become more concerned about the impact of Moiler’s alleged behaviour on their children, and decided to end the relationship.
Kirsten moved out but claimed Moiler would still pressure her for sex, and arrive at her house uninvited and unannounced. She told the jury his conduct “made me feel frightened, very vulnerable, very at risk.”
At her father’s suggestion, Kirsten went to Mundaring Police Station on the day of the car fire to ask about getting “an emergency weekend violence restraining order” but was told she would have to go to Midland Courthouse instead.
There, she claimed, she was told it was too late in the day for an application to be heard, and as it was the Friday before a long weekend, she would not be granted an audience with a magistrate until Tuesday morning at the earliest.
She filled out documentation for the order that was tendered to the court as evidence on Wednesday.
In it, Kirsten claimed Moiler had made repeated verbal death threats to her, was constantly verbally and physically abusive, had been seen driving dangerously with the children as passengers, and was repeatedly making “angry/loud disturbances at 2-3am”.
She also wrote that Moiler said he would “take me out bush and kill me in front of our daughter”, which Kirsten told the jury was “a repetitive thing that he would threaten me with”.
“I felt let down,” she said about being told to come back on Tuesday.
“I felt like I was let down by the courts and/or the police, so I felt like I needed to take matters into my own hands … I felt like I needed to make sure we were still friends for co-parenting.”
But Kirsten claimed that when she pulled up outside their Mount Helena home on the afternoon of June 2, 2023, Moiler approached her Commodore and threw a star picket into the car via an open window before spraying her with an accelerant which she thought may have been petrol or methylated spirits.
She told the court she heard what she thought was the click of a cigarette lighter, and it was then that she could “feel the flames” across her body.
“I can’t really describe it for you,” she said.
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“It felt like my skin was being ripped off my body. It was burning, it was singeing. I couldn’t stop it.”
Kirsten told the jury that she yelled out, “What the f--- Pete?”, before screaming at him to help her while peeling off her clothes.
“There was a moment I realised I wasn’t on fire any more,” she said.
“I was screeching and screaming and Peter had his hands on his knees and said, ‘What’s wrong bub? What’s wrong bub?’, and I thought, ‘You’re sick’, and that’s when I turned around and ran towards the creek.”
The trial continues.
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