Health Lance Chatters eligible for parole

This latest directions hearing in the Supreme Court was adjourned until June while hospital records and other evidence continued to be gathered.

The career criminal was convicted in 2017 for aggravated armed robbery, deprivation of liberty and rape of a Devonport service station attendant in 2015, which followed a long history of jail terms for crimes such as sexual assault, theft and abduction.

He confronted the woman in her 20s with a knife, kidnapping her and taking her to a Devonport caravan park where he raped her.

Chatters was sentenced to 10 years' prison for the crimes with a non-parole period of six years.

He made several attempts to continue to appeal his conviction, and an appeal against this sentence was dismissed in 2019.

In 2019 defence lawyer Michael Flanagan said the head sentence applied to Chatters' offending was well above the maximum head sentence for a count of rape in Tasmania over the past 29 years.

He referred to the recent case involving a rape of an elderly woman in Launceston by Christo Brown which attracted an eight-year sentence.

He said there had been a shift in community attitudes towards serious sexual assaults, but Chatters' sentence represented a dramatic increase rather than an incremental one.

Attempts to have Chatters declared a dangerous criminal by a former victim have failed.

Forensic mental health reports have found Chatters has an anti-social disorder and strong psychopathic tendencies.