Woman awarded $980k after neighbour bashes head with mallet in dispute by Hannah Neale
A woman has been awarded more than $980,000 after her neighbour hit her in the head with a mallet during a dispute.
The victim now "spends her days anxious and fearful" while "the life she previously lived is now all but lost to her," acting Justice Ann Ainslie-Wallace said.
In an ACT Supreme Court decision published on Tuesday, the acting judge awarded the woman about $983,512 in damages plus interest.
In March 2022 the victim was speaking to her next-door neighbour, Annemie Pretorius, about a dispute over a nature strip that abutted both properties.
Ms Pretorius believed that it was her property and she could make changes to the land, which was inconvenient to the other woman.
During an argument near the strip, Ms Pretorius moved away slightly and the victim accidentally touched her hat, meaning to touch her shoulder.
The acting judge said Ms Pretorius then "without warning and shockingly" swung a rubber mallet and deliberately struck the woman on the side of her head.
"By this action, the defendant caused significant injury, damage, and loss to [the victim] with the result that the life she previously lived is now all but lost to her and she spends her days anxious and fearful and, at times in great pain," acting Justice Ainslie-Wallace said.
In March 2023, Ms Pretorius pleaded guilty to the crime and was sentenced to six months imprisonment that was suspended upon her entering into a good behaviour order.
In Tuesday's decision, acting Justice Ainslie-Wallace found the evidence was "powerfully persuasive of the significant impact the assault has had on the [victim's] life".
"A vibrant, engaging, social, competent woman has been reduced to a fearful and anxious person, suffering significant pain and unable to live in the home she and her husband designed, built and loved to live in and no longer able to entertain with her husband as she did before."
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Since the mallet attack, the woman has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and experienced constant throbbing pain in her head which is expected to be life-long.
She gave evidence that her face feels as if she had been to the dentist and had an injection, it feels numb and swollen.
The ACT Supreme Court building, where the case was heard. Picture by Sitthixay Ditthavong
The victim and her husband had worked "happily and efficiently together in his accountancy practice and she was competent, capable, and the 'face of the business' to clients," the acting judge said.
"What work she now does is limited by the time she can spend on a task without pain, and she makes mistakes which must be corrected."
Due to her fear and anxiety, the woman has now taken refuge in a unit in Queensland and is separated from her husband, her daughter, son, and grandchildren.
She was awarded damages including for economic loss and medical treatment costs such as $470,000 for future ketamine infusions to alleviate pain.