Peter John Moiler: Trial told husband was spreading lies around Mt Helena soon after his wife was set on fire

His wife had just been set on fire. But husband Peter John Moiler, 43, was not ringing police or paramedics, or even coming to her aid, according to the prosecutor at his District Court trial. Instead he was, “getting his version of events out,” around their community of Mt Helena telling neighbours she had tried to set him on fire. That was what Prosecutor Alan Dungey told the jury as he summed up the State’s case against Peter John Moiler who has pleaded not guilty to an act that caused grievous bodily harm to his wife Kirsten on June 2, 2023. Mr Moiler is alleged to have squeezed fuel from a water bottle into the lap of Ms Moiler as she sat in the driver’s seat of her vehicle at their Mt Helena home and then used a lighter to set her on fire. However, in the minutes after the fire Mr Moiler told neighbours that she had in fact tried to set him alight but the bottle of fuel blew up in her face. Mr Dungey said while his severely injured wife was in, “no position to give a coherent account of what happened,” Mr Moiler, was, “going out of his way to tell people he was the victim.” “You might think he was very quick off the mark with his version of events while his wife was still lit up,” Mr Dungey told the jurors. “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still strapping its boots on.” The blaze left Ms Moiler in an induced coma for three weeks with severe burns to her arms, hands, fingers, ears, lips, nose, chest, back and thighs. Mr Moiler had less serious burns to his arms, chest, neck and beard. The court had previously heard the alleged assault happened hours after Ms Moiler lodged a court application for a violence restraining order against Mr Moiler. Mr Dungey said the fire occurred at the, “end of a relationship marred by methylamphetamine abuse and family violence.” Defence barrister Roisin Keating told the jurors that the State’s case, “lives and dies on the evidence,” of Ms Moiler who was using methamphetamine daily and had been drinking prior to the fire. Ms Keating said Ms Moiler was both “irrational and paranoid,” at the time. She pointed out to the jury that after she lodged an application for a violence restraining order against Mr Moiler she then called him and asked if he wanted to do burnouts at a remote gravel pit. Ms Keating said that it was Ms Moiler’s invitation to her estranged husband that brought her to the family home that night. “Going to do skids in a remote secluded and poorly lit location...I suggest that she would place herself in in such a vulnerable position as entirely implausible,” she said. Ms Keating pointed out that a witness described Mr Moiler as “shocked and scared,” after the fire and that he gave his full name to neighbours telling people the address of his parent’s house where he then drove to. “This is not a case where he just cuts and runs from his estranged wife,” she said. The jury is expected to commence deliberations on Wednesday. 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) Sexual Assault Counselling Australia 1800 211 028 WA Sexual Assault Resource Centre 6458 1828 or 1800 199 888 Lifeline 13 11 14