Andrew says his fancy smart TV burnt down his house and killed his family’s two beloved dogs. Now he wants Sony to cough up $1.6million for the devastation it caused: ‘Our beautiful fur babies’

DAILYMAIL.COM • 3h ago

By WAYNE FLOWER, SENIOR NEWS REPORTER, AUSTRALIA 04:21 14 Oct 2026, updated 04:21 14 Oct 2026

A Victorian couple’s world went up in smoke when they claim their Sony television burst into flames, destroying their home and killing their two cherished family dogs.

Now Andrew and Denise Margaret Fyfe-Wright are suing the Japanese giant for more than $1.6million in damages.

But the family say no amount of money can take away the pain of losing their two beloved Cavoodles, Gus and Poppy.

The couple say the devastation began about 3pm on October 10, 2023 at their home on Cornelius Crescent in picturesque Healesville, north-east of Melbourne.

According to documents lodged with the Supreme Court of Victoria, the fire started in the lounge and was caused by their 55-inch Sony XR55X90J television, bought from JB Hi-Fi for $1,995 in June 2021.

The blaze gutted their house and everything inside it, leaving them with just the clothes on their backs.

Six Country Fire Authority (CFA) brigades had desperately tried to extinguish the blaze, but it could not be contained.

A CFA spokesman said at the time the cause of the fire was determined to be an electrical fault in a flat-screen television on the south wall of the lounge room.

In the aftermath of the inferno, the local community rallied around the family and donated more than $17,000 to help the couple rebuild their lives.

In a GoFundMe appeal at the time, the couple’s daughter Stephanie revealed the full extent of the family’s agony.

‘We were forced to stand by and watch our heart break in front of us,’ she wrote. ‘My parents and sibling left with only the clothes on their back.

‘The heart-wrenching feelings of devastation as we watched our lives change before us forever. There are truly no words to describe what our family is going through.

‘We are incredibly grateful that we have each other and no one was hurt.’

The loss of Gus and Poppy had been particularly hard for the family, she said.

‘We are devastatingly heartbroken to have lost two incredibly special pillars of our family in Gus and Poppy. Our beautiful fur babies didn’t deserve this,’ she wrote.

‘The physical items that can be replaced, the irreplaceable items that can’t. The years of hard work crumbling in front of us.’

Stephanie’s brother Tom had also been living in the home before the fire, and lost all of his belongings, while her other brother James was living there part-time.

Nothing was able to be salvaged from the house, which Stephanie said her parents had put their ‘heart and soul’ into since making a tree change and moving to the area about six years before the blaze.

‘Everyone was always welcome there – they’ve held a wedding there, they housed friends, people in need, birthday parties, Christmas parties, everything,’ she said.

After a protracted dispute with Sony, the matter is now set for a Supreme Court trial.

Three years later, the couple are still living in temporary accommodation while they assess the full cost of rebuilding their lives.

Their claimed losses include an estimated $1.37million to rebuild the home, $110,550 for destroyed domestic contents, and $95,000 (and rising) for alternative accommodation.

The loss of their two family dogs is listed as ‘TBA’.

The Fyfe-Wrights allege the television had a safety defect under Australian Consumer Law.

Documents claim the television was not of acceptable quality, not free from defects, and not safe for ordinary household use.

The statement of claim asserted the TV ‘can start or cause a fire’ and that it did exactly that.

They further claimed Sony, as manufacturer, breached consumer guarantees that the product would be fit for purpose and free from safety defects.

Sony Australia, which is yet to file a defence, did not respond to the Daily Mail’s request for comment.

The Fyfe-Wrights’ legal team, Hall & Wilcox, also declined to comment.

READ MORE: Inside the devastating destruction caused by a robot vacuum after explosion left a fiancé with burns to 75 per cent of his body and his home destroyed

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