Arabic version: سجن امرأة بسبب حريق كنيسة كاراكاطا

According to ABC News, Tianna Addison Diodato-Day has been sentenced to five years in prison for setting fire to the Norfolk Chapel at Perth’s Karrakatta Cemetery in October 2024. The blaze caused more than $3.4 million in damage and disrupted hundreds of funerals.

The District Court heard Diodato-Day, 30, concealed her face, smashed through a glass door and poured fuel from a jerry can onto the chapel floor and furniture before lighting it. Afterward, she sent a video to a person named “Bunter”, writing: “I hope I did you proud” and “I want to be part of this friend group still.”

Judge Carmel Barbagallo said the chapel was closed for 12 months, preventing families from farewelling loved ones at a venue they had selected. She described Karrakatta Cemetery, where 40 per cent of Western Australian funerals took place, as a place of “mourning, remembrance and cultural significance”.

The Karrakatta fire was the most destructive in a series of cemetery blazes over several days. Diodato-Day also accompanied Dennis Dear as he lit fires at Mandurah’s Lakes Lawn Cemetery, causing $412,000 damage, and she used accelerant to burn a grave at another Mandurah cemetery. Neither attempted to put out the fires or alert authorities.

Dear, 28, received three years and four months in prison after pleading guilty to two Lakes Lawn arsons and breaching a conditional imprisonment order. The Norfolk Chapel has since been renovated. Metropolitan Cemeteries Board chief executive Kathlene Oliver said the attack had caused significant distress and was “an attack on the community.”