A man who caused a car accident that killed his friend has been terrified by his first experience in jail, after a violent riot in which inmates were assaulted.
But a judge said in sentencing him that she had no sympathy and duly sent him back to prison.
Nathan Roussety, 31, was driving his friend's work van in Oakleigh in August 2013 when he swerved, hit a median strip and crashed into a pole and trees.
His 30-year-old friend and passenger, Zoran Stojkovski, who was not wearing a seatbelt, was thrown from the car and suffered fatal head injuries.
Roussety appeared before the Melbourne County Court on Tuesday after pleading guilty to dangerous driving causing death.
His lawyer Leighton Gwynn said Roussety had spent 15 days in custody awaiting sentencing at Melbourne's Metropolitan Remand Centre, including during last week's riots.
Mr Gwynn said Roussety was "terrified" by his first prison experience.
He had been forced to sleep on a cell floor and heard people being assaulted, fearing he would be next, his lawyer said.
Roussety struggles with his mental health, has not worked since the accident and has sought treatment for drug use including ice, the court heard.
Rather than sentence him to a prison term, Mr Gwynn asked Judge Sue Pullen to consider a community corrections order with significant community work.
But Judge Pullen said a report from Corrections Victoria was "hardly glowing" and it was perhaps a good thing that Roussety had not enjoyed prison.
"That's prison, and I'm not sympathetic," she said.
"Hopefully he learned 'I don't want to go back there'. He knows what awaits."
In a victim impact statement, Mr Stojkovski's mother said she had been handed a life sentence of grief and heartache over her son's death.
Judge Pullen sentenced Roussety to eight months in prison and placed him on a three-year community corrections order.
He was also disqualified from driving for two years.
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