Woman doused man in petrol and set him on fire over ‘joke’ he made to her
An Australian woman set a man on fire after he made a 'misogynistic' joke at her expense, causing him to suffer third-degree burns to 55 percent of his body.
Corbie Walpole was sentenced to a maximum term of seven years and six months in prison in May 2025 following the horrific attack on Jake Loader that took place in January 2024.
Walpole spent an entire evening partying, drinking and taking cocaine on January 6, 2024, and it was at the end of the night when she began to grow frustrated with Mr Loader's remarks made at her.
"He told me to go to the kitchen where I belong because I'm a girl," Walpole said, with Mr Loader reportedly joking she should go and bake scones.
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"'He was really pushing my buttons. I was feeling overwhelmed by [Mr Loader's] presence, and I didn't know what to do."
At around 4am, Walpole snapped, collected a five-litre jerry can of petrol from her garage and poured the contents over Mr Loader.
She then began to wave a cigarette lighter while saying: "I'll do it. I'll do it."
"Go on, do it." Mr Loader is said to have replied, before Walpole followed through with her threat, immediately engulfing Mr Loader in flames.
Mr Loader suffered horrific burns to over half of his body, with a further six per cent suffering less severe injuries.
He spent eight days in a coma and required 10 operations, but survived the ordeal. However, he can no longer continue his work mustering cattle as his singed skin can not be exposed to the sun, and his body finds temperature regulation difficult as his sweat glands were burned off.
A GoFundMe has been set up to help aid his recovery, which can be donated to here.
Walpole, from Howlong, near Albury on the New South Wales-Victoria border in Australia, has spent the last 13 months in prison after pleading guilty to one count of burning, maiming, disfiguring or disabling a person by use of a corrosive fluid in NSW District Court.
Walpole had made an appeal for a shorter prison term than her minimum sentence of four-and-a-half years, arguing the judge, Judge English, had failed to consider her mental health.
Additionally, she alleged her sentencing didn't take into account that she had developed PTSD 'as a result of the offending conduct'.
She took her appeal to Court of Criminal Appeal (CAA) , which decided her sentence was justified on Wednesday (17 June).
Though they granted Judge English had denied her procedural fairness by not raising a forensic psychologist's evidence about her existing mental illness during sentencing, they maintained the sentence should stand.
Justices Julie Ward, Richard Cavanagh and Richard Weinstein all noted that the development of PTSD by an offender in the athermath of their crime is 'neither unusual nor surprising'.
"It may flow from the realisation of what the offender has done and the consequences for the offender," they said. "It is sometimes associated with remorse. It is plain that, in this case, the applicant is remorseful. She thinks about what she did every day.
"She has intrusive thoughts relating to, and can be triggered by, petrol. Her sleep is disturbed and she has an entirely negative outlook about herself."
Daniel Murphy