A man in his 80s who beat a woman with a hammer, attacked her home with an axe and set fire to her property in November last year has been jailed.
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Ian Andrew Mackenzie had previously pleaded guilty in the Supreme Court in Burnie to aggravated burglary, wounding and arson and was sentenced by Justice Tamara Jago on Monday afternoon.
"Indeed, your cognitive abilities are greater than 94 per cent of your peers," Justice Jago said.
She said the doctor had concluded there was no clinical impetus for his crimes, but that they were "isolated and abhorrent" and a "disproportionate response to a perceived collective injustice".
Justice Jago told the court Mackenzie attacked the woman, who owned the caravan park where he lived for 18 years, because she and her husband had made plans to develop the property.
He owned his unit and had made significant personal investments into it, the judge said, but he did not own the land.
The court heard Mackenzie believed he had a lifelong tenancy on the land, but the owners disputed ever agreeing to such a situation.
Because of this, Mackenzie believed he and his fellow park residents would lose out on thousands of dollars and that it was an "injustice" the development would force them from their homes.
Justice Jago told the court Mackenzie loaded a wheelbarrow with the axe, hammer and fire accelerants and covered it in laundry.
He then asked the woman to unlock the laundry for him, and as she was doing so he struck her four times to the head.
She wrestled with him, asked what he was doing and screamed for her husband, with whom she then fled.
Mackenzie attempted to break into their home with the axe, but when he was unable to he set the laundry on fire, causing more than $100,000 damage.
He handed himself into police when they arrived on the scene.
"It is most fortunate here that the complainant did not suffer a more serious injury," Justice Jago said, adding that the woman had recovered from her physical injuries.
"It is sufficient to say that beyond the obvious physical impact and property damage, they have been affected emotionally, socially, financially and psychologically."
She said Mackenzie's crimes were "very serious", and that resorting to violence to settle grievances "is never acceptable and such behaviour must be condemned".
"This was a planned, destructive and revengeful act."