An Illawarra man accused of dousing a five-year-old with petrol and setting her alight will face the NSW Supreme Court in Sydney again today as police seek to revoke his bail.

He was charged with maliciously inflicting grievous bodily harm with intent, recklessly causing wounding, taking action that resulted in a physical injury and neglecting a child in his care, after the five-year-old was admitted to Westmead Children's Hospital suffering full thickness burns to her legs.

Police allege the man, 26, doused the girl's legs in petrol then set her on fire, before stomping on her to extinguish the flames.

Police documents tendered to the court said neither the man, nor his de facto wife - the girl's mother - took the child to hospital, instead washing her burns with warm water and treating them with Dettol and Neurofen.

The girl was found approximately 10 days later, lying semi-naked in the sun, unable to walk, with her skin peeling off her wounds, which were emitting an offensive odour.

The man, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, appeared in court yesterday, where Crown prosecutor David Laird told Justice Peter Hidden the man should not be left in the community unsupervised.

The court heard the man was on a methadone program, was a recovering heroin and speed addict, had only quit using cannabis about a month ago, suffered from schizophrenia and epilepsy and had sustained frontal lobe brain damage from a motorbike accident in 1990.

"The fundamental issue that is of concern to the Crown is not so much that a five-year-old has been doused in petrol and set alight," Mr Laird said. "But there has been no explanation as to why this has occurred. With his mental health issues, it gives (rise to concern) that somewhere along the line these circumstances occur and this happens to someone else.

"The evidence is that the burn lasted only one to two seconds before it was put out.

"(The child) didn't put it out herself, someone had to be there.