An Australian woman who doused a childhood friend in petrol and set him on fire is appealing her jail sentence on the grounds the judge failed to take into account that she developed PTSD as a result of her own senseless crime.
Corbie Walpole, 24, has been behind bars since being sentenced in May last year for attacking Jake Loader – because he joked she should stay in the kitchen and make scones instead of drinking with the boys – in Howlong, NSW, in January 2024, and filed a notice of intention to appeal the following month.
She now has a hearing in the Court of Criminal Appeal set for May this year, the Daily Mail reported, and will argue that her 7.5-year sentence with a 4.5-year non-parole period was excessive on two different mental health grounds.
Walpole will allege Judge Jennifer English should have considered that she developed a serious mental illness “as a result of the offending conduct” as a “relevant consideration” in sentencing.
She will also allege she was denied procedural fairness by the judge’s rejection of the evidence of a forensic psychiatrist about her offending conduct and a mental illness she was suffering from at the time.
Walpole, who spent 16 months out on bail after being charged, pleaded guilty to one charge of burn, maim, disfigure or disable a person by use of a corrosive fluid, an offence that carries a maximum sentence of 25 years’ imprisonment.
But her lawyer told a pre-sentencing hearing her client should be spared a custodial sentence because she felt provoked, suffered from mental health issues at the time of the crime, and developed PTSD from the attack.
In sentencing Judge English rejected suggestions Walpole was provoked by Mr Loader, and called the assault, which took place in her backyard, “an act of immediate, destructive and horrifically painful violence”.
Judge English noted Walpole had left her home after setting Mr Loader alight instead of helping him, and the court heard that while others dragged the burning man into a small pool to extinguish the flames, Walpole just watched and said: “What the f- have I done, what the f- have I done, he just wouldn’t stop.”
The judge said that while it was “never easy to send a young person, particularly a young woman, to jail”, only a custodial sentence would be appropriate.
Judge English also took into account Walpole’s previous conviction of assault occasioning actual bodily harm over a 2021 attack on a bouncer, and rejected her claims that she had only intended to scare her victim.
“She threatened to set fire to the victim and she did exactly that,” she said.
Judge English said she accepted that Walpole was extremely remorseful, had given up drugs and alcohol, was receiving counselling, and now experiences PTSD symptoms.
The court heard that Walpole constantly replays the attack in her mind, has developed a traumatic reaction to the smell of petrol, experiences nightmares and intrusive thoughts, and is haunted by the “bewildered” look on her victim’s face when he got out of the pool covered with severe burns.
During the pre-sentencing hearing the court heard that Mr Loader, who musters cattle in outback Queensland, suffered third degree burns to 55% of his body, less severe burns to another 6%, spent eight days in a coma and another 74 days in a burns unit, and needed 10 surgeries.
He can no longer go in the sun and has trouble regulating his body temperature as his sweat glands were burned off.
Walpole, who was drunk and had taken cocaine earlier in the evening, told the court that Mr Loader had been “pushing my buttons” before the attack, but under questioning admitted they frequently made fun of each other and engaged in banter.
“I was feeling overwhelmed by [Mr Loader’s] presence and I didn’t know what to do,” she said.
“He was antagonising me. He told me to go to the kitchen where I belong because I’m a girl, I gave it back to him and called him a misogynist,” she said.
She then went to her garage, returned with a jerry can containing five litres of fuel and poured it over Mr Loader while waving her cigarette lighter around and saying “I’ll do it, I’ll do it”.
Mr Loader said “go on, do it” and she set him ablaze.
When asked why she had committed the crime, Walpole said she “didn’t know” and “I didn’t want to injure Jake”.
“‘I find it very hard to believe the injuries that were caused was from my doing,” she said.
Header image: Left, Corbie Walpole. Right, Jake Loader (Facebook).
