A teenager accused of holding down a younger boy, dousing him in petrol and setting him alight said he thought the flames would be easily extinguished.
Matt Dillion Shannon, 18, is on trial in the High Court at Napier charged with grievous bodily harm with intent to cause grievous bodily harm over a Jackass-style prank that went wrong at his birthday party last year.
In his police interview, played to the court today, Shannon admitted the 16-year-old victim was held down by others but said only a shot glass of petrol was poured on him before he was set on fire.
The victim told the court yesterday the fuel was poured from a petrol can.
In a second police interview shown to the jury today, Shannon had voluntarily returned to amend his version of events. In the interview he admitted the victim had been held down by others when he set him on fire.
On the stand, Shannon said a shot glass was filled from an almost empty petrol container as a joke for someone to drink - but no one accepted the dare.
The idea to pour it on the victim and light it came from the Jackass movies and he expected the flames to be easily extinguished.
Yesterday, the victim described the agony of having petrol poured on him and being set alight.
The youth, who was 16 at the time, described the incident in a recorded police interview heard in the High Court at Napier on the opening day of a trial in which Matt-Dillion Shannon, 18, pleaded not guilty to a charge of causing grievous bodily harm with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.
The charges stem from an incident on August 13, 2011.
He pleaded guilty to a second charge of causing grievous bodily harm with reckless disregard.
The jury was told the victim had recently been ill and the loud music at Shannon's 17th birthday party was giving him a headache.
He said he went and sat down in Shannon's bedroom, where he was then held down, doused in petrol from a petrol can and set on fire.
"I thought it was just water and when I figured out it wasn't, I started freaking out," he said in the police interview.
"He got a lighter out and I remember saying 'Matt, please don't do this' and he lit it. The pain was like nothing you'd ever imagine you could possibly feel. I was screaming for about 20 seconds while I was held down."
After he managed to get up and take his shirt off, he was screaming, asking for help but "everybody was just standing round laughing" before one person helped pat the fire out.
With no T-shirt, he got on his bike and cycled home where his mother put him in a cold shower and called police.
He was taken to Hawkes Bay Hospital with burns on his back, shoulders, neck and face.
In his opening address, Crown prosecutor Russell Collins said the issue in dispute was the accused's state of mind, in what he described as a "most serious" case of bullying.
"The Crown says the only thing you could intend in those circumstances was the sort of harm that did occur," he said.
Defence lawyer Bill Calver argued it was a prank, akin to the Jackass movies and TV series, that went horribly wrong.
"What we have in this trial is what was supposed to have been a practical joke, a stunt go horribly wrong," he told the jury.
"Unfortunately there was harm done on this occasion, the accused has accepted what he did was totally stupid, totally reckless. But he has absolutely no reason to cause serious harm to [the victim]."
During cross-examination, Mr Calver suggested the petrol used during the incident had been poured from a shot glass, not a petrol can.
The trial continues.
