The man who was paid a "pathetic" sum to help light the house fire that incinerated NSW solicitor Katie Foreman has been sentenced to at least 24 years in jail.
Bernard Justin Spicer did not react when his sentence was handed down in the Supreme Court on Friday.
He was the last person to be sentenced out of the four charged with the murder of the 31-year-old, who burned to death in her Corrimal home in Wollongong's north in the early hours of October 27, 2011.
The lawyer made it to where the inferno was lit on the landing just outside her bedroom but collapsed after being overcome by smoke and heat.
While the word "incinerated" was emotionally charged, Justice Ian Harrison said "unfortunately it is completely accurate".
It was hard to imagine a worse way to die, he added.
Spicer, the court heard, had been recruited by Ms Foreman's on-off boyfriend Bradley Rawlinson and former friend Wendy Evans to carry out the attack.
Justice Harrison rejected Spicer's claim he had just been hired to scare Ms Foreman and did not know she was in the house when he poured petrol through her bedroom and possibly even on her bed.
"The location and intensity of the fire is overwhelmingly supportive of the fact the blaze was set to kill Ms Foreman," he said.
Intercepted phone conversations between the co-accused after the killing also showed a complete lack of distress and dismay that Ms Foreman had died, Justice Harrison added.
Stopping short of calling him a "contract killer", Justice Harrison said "by his own admission he agreed to be part of the enterprise in return for payment of $3000".
Justice Harrison said he remained "completely puzzled" as to why Ms Foreman was killed.
Spicer, he said, had allowed himself to become an instrument in Rawlinson and Evans' "unexplained and inexplicable ill will", all for a pathetic reward.
Evans, Rawlinson and Spicer's partner, Michelle Sharon Proud, were all sentenced over their roles in the killing last year.
Rawlinson received the highest sentence - a minimum of 27 years - while Evans and Proud were sentenced to at least 18 and 14 years respectively.
Spicer received a maximum of 32 years and will be eligible for parole in 2035.
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