A South African court has sentenced a man to 20 years in prison for murdering his girlfriend by dousing her with petrol and setting her alight at her flat in Johannesburg in 2018.

The magistrate described Mpho Thobane as a "cold-blooded killer" and a coward who fled after torching Viwe Dalingozi in a "place she thought she was safe".

"This is clearly a case of gender-based violence. The community deserves to live in a better world than this," magistrate Hambokazi Twele was quoted by News24 as saying.