Natalie Sands: My father poured petrol over my skin and set me and my son on fire after bludgeoning my mother to death. Here’s the shocking reason why he didn’t spend a single day in jail

A young mother who was doused with petrol and set on fire by her own father has vowed to fight for justice for her young son and mother who died in the horrific attack.

Natalie Sands, 30, had moved back in with her parents in Tamworth, north-east NSW, four years ago to save money and build a better life for her two sons.

Her father, Richard, who had recently been in a mental health facility, asked his wife to fill a can with gasoline so he could mow the lawn.

But one morning, Natalie woke up at dawn to her father kicking in her bedroom door, a gas can in one hand and a red lighter in the other.

He started pouring 10 liters of fuel around the room and on his daughter.

“I held his shoulders around his neck and pushed him backwards and pushed him away from my children,” Mrs Sands said. 60 minutes.

‘I shouted at him, ‘Daddy, don’t do this! Do not do this!’ I have two beautiful children in that room. I said ‘don’t do this’ and he just wouldn’t stop.”

He lit the lighter five times and Mrs. Sands was able to blow it out each time.

“But the sixth time he lit it, as soon as he lit it, he pushed it into my chest, and that was it, and it just buzzed, and the whole house was on fire,” she said.

Her eldest son, who cannot be named for legal reasons, managed to escape the worrying inferno.

But she couldn’t save her five-year-old Orlando.

‘I can see him. I can see him lying on the bed, fast asleep, and it was like a wave on the beach, but it was a wave of fire,” Ms Sands told the programme.

‘I had to accept that I couldn’t do anything.’

Ms Sands suffered burns to 80 per cent of her body. A week later, she woke up in the hospital to find her father had beaten her mother to death with a hammer before setting the fire.

He later turned himself in to the police, where he confessed to the frenzied attack.

Her five-year-old son Orlando died in the fire and her mother was beaten to death before the fire was ignited.

Ms Sands suffered burns to 80 per cent of her body

Her father, Richard (pictured), will never stand trial after being found not criminally responsible

But he will never appear in court after being diagnosed with a neurodegenerative disease and a depressive disorder.

A High Court judge ruled that he was not criminally responsible for the deaths of his wife and grandson.

He was sent to a mental health facility instead of jail, and his daughter claims he is already under supervision.

“If someone is so (mentally ill) that he slaughtered his own family, why do you let him out onto the streets and back into the community?” Mrs. Sands asked.

She is campaigning to make the system more supportive of victims.

“I don’t want this to just end in tragedy and sadness, because otherwise what’s the point? What’s the point if I’m not here to fight?’ she said.

‘I only have two reasons why I live: one is my son, and two is to try to do something better than what is already happening. It’s a lifelong challenge, but I’m really ready for it, I am. I’m not going to stop.’