Stuff reports:
A Hastings teenager who doused an acquaintance with petrol and set him alight at a party was this morning sentenced to three years in prison.
Matt-Dillion Shannon was sentenced in the High Court in Napier after a jury in found him guilty.
So far, so good. You set a friend on fire, you plead guilty. You get sentenced to three years in prison.
Excessive?
Perhaps not. It appears Matt-Dillion Shannon is still claiming the resulting injuries was mostly the victim’s fault:
Shannon told the jury the victim should have “stopped, dropped and rolled”, and he would have been all right.
“I thought he’d wake up, get a fright and roll about until the flame was extinguished and he’d be fine. He just jumped up and ran around.
“If he’d stopped, dropped and rolled, it would have just been a joke instead of a serious incident.”
So he’s basically blaming the victim for sleeping through the initial stages of being set on fire, and then for panicking instead of rationally rolling around like a human torch.
What a champ.
