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AAP
AAP
National
Emily Woods

Prison for man who set friend on fire

A man who doused his best friend in petrol and then set him on fire has been jailed for 10 years. (AAP)

A Victorian man who doused his best friend in petrol and then set him on fire after an argument has been sentenced to a decade behind bars.

Umit Gorgulu, 40, was found guilty by a jury in March of intentionally causing serious injury to his friend and housemate Kevin Taplin.

In April 2019 the pair were driving from Portland in southwest Victoria to Hamilton to pick up Mr Taplin's motorbike.

They had a fight in the car and Gorgulu threw his phone out the window.

After being separated for several hours, during which Gorgulu left Mr Taplin threatening voice messages from a stranger's phone, they reunited in Hamilton where Gorgulu punched Mr Taplin in the head several times.

Mr Taplin tried to drive away but Gorgulu stopped him by clinging to the driver's side of the car before grabbing a jerry can full of petrol.

He doused the car and Mr Taplin in about two litres of fuel and then ignited the petrol, setting fire to his friend.

Mr Taplin rolled on the ground to put the fire out and screamed for help, with nearby residents pouring water over him and hosing him down.

He spent two weeks in a coma and it took two years to rehabilitate, with physical, mental and emotional scars still remaining.

Mr Taplin previously told the court he could no longer trust others and relives the trauma of the attack every day.

The offending was "spontaneous and unplanned", Justice Amanda Fox said handing down her sentence in the Victorian Supreme Court.

The fact the pair were friends was an aggravating feature of his offending, she found.

"Your prior friendship forms part of the overall circumstances of this offending. It also explains why one of the impacts on Mr Taplin is a loss of the ability to trust people, because he had trusted you as a friend," she said.

She sentenced Gorgulu to 10 years in prison, with a non-parole period of seven years.

He has already served more than three years behind bars.

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