Boy, 13, Died in a Firebomb Attack During His First Sleepover — Now the Man Behind It Is Going to Prison

A man has been sentenced to prison for a 1998 fire in Sydney that claimed the life of 13-year-old Arthur Haines during his first sleepover.

Gregory John Walker was sentenced on Tuesday, Dec. 22, in the NSW Supreme Court to a maximum term of 10 years and nine months, according to news.com.au, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and The Guardian. Walker was charged with Haines’s murder in 2022, but pleaded guilty to manslaughter ahead of his Supreme Court trial earlier this year.

According to reports, the attack happened on April 9, 1998, when Haines was asleep at a friend’s home. Walker threw a Molotov cocktail into the house, believing a neighbor had paint-bombed his partner’s car, ABC reported. Although Walker later claimed he didn’t know anyone was inside, news.com.au reported that he drove behind the home and hurled the device over a fence, aiming for the back veranda. Instead, it landed in the kitchen.

Haines, who had been sleeping upstairs, jumped from a window, The Guardian reported. He suffered burns to up to 65% of his body and died in hospital 11 weeks later.

During sentencing, Justice Hament Dhanji described the consequences as devastating, saying, “The results were catastrophic,” according to The Guardian. Walker kept his eyes down in court.

Walker reportedly told a witness in 2014 that he “wouldn’t have gone through with it” if he had known children were inside the house.

Police arrested Walker in 2020 after the NSW Police Force offered a $1 million reward for information related to the case.

In court, Justice Dhanji noted Walker’s long criminal history dating back to the 1980s, but said he had since changed course, establishing a not-for-profit boxing gym for young people. “It appears he has steered a number of young people away from the path he went down,” the judge said, per ABC. “While the ledger cannot be squared by the good of the offender in more recent times, that contribution must be taken into account and given weight.”

In a letter submitted to the court, Walker apologized to Haines’s family and said he felt “shame and embarrassment,” ABC reported. “There are no words I can say that can ever bring back Arthur and I have been living with guilt, shame and regret over what happened for decades now,” he wrote, adding that it was never his intention “to actually hurt anyone that night, let alone take someone’s life.”

Walker can apply for parole in February 2029, after being held in custody since 2022.

Haines’s mother, Julie Szabo, said she still replays what happened — including the moment she agreed to the sleepover. “It was going to be the first night he had not slept under the same roof as me,” her statement read, per The Guardian. “I said ‘yes’ … I think about that decision a lot.”

She added, “I gave him the biggest hug, we both said we loved each other, I didn’t know at the time it would be one of our last hugs.”