A privately educated former South Australian soccer star who held a petrol can over his wife’s head and threatened to burn her alive has been jailed for at least two years.
Father-of-two Mathew Vidic, who played in the SANFL with Norwood, pleaded guilty to one count of threatening harm and threatening to kill Julia Hodge.
In her victim impact statement in August, Ms Hodge, who is a teacher and marathon champion, said those incidents were part of a “pattern” of abuse and that Vidic repeatedly called her from prison after being arrested .
Vidic, 42, previously stole her passport to stop her competing in races abroad and threatened to kill the family dog with a knife, the court was told.
“May 26 and June 3 (2023) were the most serious manifestations of a pattern of coercive control, manipulation and threats of violence that Mathew subjected me to over an extended period,” he said.
During these attacks, he twice threatened to set his wife on fire, on one occasion while pouring liters of gasoline and lighting a lighter, the Adelaide Advertiser reported.
“On May 26, he threatened to burn our house with me and our children inside (with) a full 20-liter can of gasoline that he had prepared earlier, to teach me a lesson.”
The court heard he called Triple 0, but the former footballer kicked the door down, grabbed his phone and hung up on the operator.
Former South Australian footballer Mathew Vidic (pictured) has been jailed for at least two years for threatening to burn his wife alive.
The emergency services operator tried to call back but Mrs Hodge was too afraid to answer and the assault on Mitcham’s home only ended when her nine-year-old daughter begged Vidic to leave her mother alone.
Mrs Hodge did not report the incident to the police at the time because she was terrified.
“I felt helpless to protect my children and escape… I felt overwhelmed by a horrible sense of helplessness, isolation and fear,” she told the court.
“At that moment, I had never been more afraid in my life, I was consumed by the idea that he was going to murder me and potentially our children.”
She said Vidic told her that “if I can’t keep you through love, I’ll keep you out of fear” and “if I can’t have you, no one can.”
On June 3 last year, while his children spent the night elsewhere, Vidic entered their room with a 10-liter fuel canister.
He lit a lighter for 30 minutes while repeatedly threatening to set his wife on fire as she lay in bed.
Vidic also verbally abused her, accusing her “of false things and called me horrible things, due to his severe jealousy and paranoia.”
The mother recalled feeling helpless, vulnerable and helpless as Vidic poured gasoline on the bedside table and the floor, “the lighter near my head with a naked flame.”
She thought that “that night they would burn her alive, especially if she said the wrong thing.”
But after recording the assault on his phone, Hodge managed to escape and contacted police.
Vidic was arrested that night and has been in custody since.
On Wednesday, South Australian District Court Judge Rauf Soulio jailed Vidic for the horrific domestic abuse of Ms Hodge, the Advertiser reported.
‘You said ‘if you want to pretend to be asleep, we’ll find out if you’re asleep or not.’ You left the room and returned with a jerrycan and a lighter. “You brought the canister to him and lit the lighter,” Judge Soulio told Vidic.
‘You said ‘today is the day, it’s your last day.’ She asked you, in fear, if you intended to kill her and you told her, “I think we’re going together.”
The judge added that a terrified Hodge apologized to her husband and tried to do anything to get him to put down the gas can.
Vidic, 42, pleaded guilty to aggravated charges of threatening to harm and kill Julia Hodge (pictured).
“You said ‘you’re sorry because I have a fucking gas can next to your fucking head and I’m about to set you on fire.'”
The court previously heard Vidic had been diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder, bipolar disorder type 2 and intermittent explosive disorder.
His ex-wife told the court that none of these conditions diminished his crimes against “those he should have been protecting” in “the place where we should have been safest.”
She also told the court that she and her children would suffer for years.
Vidic’s lawyer, Peter Morrison, told the court that Vidic’s father had abused his mother and that she had killed him in self-defence.
Morrison said there was no excuse for Vidic’s crimes but they were “explained” by his family history.
Old sports injuries that left him unable to work caused Vidic to become a stay-at-home father, but he became a binge drinker while the children were at school.
In doing so he worsened existing mental health problems and the jealousy he felt about Ms Hodge’s absences from the home, the court heard.
Judge Soulio sentenced Vidic to four years and four months, with a non-parole period of two years and two months.
The sentence was backdated to June 2023, when he was arrested and taken into custody, meaning Vidic will be eligible for parole in August 2025.