![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/68b1683dcc10dccc7c0c12263c976139.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nA northern Tasmanian woman who burnt down her home of almost four decades has been handed a suspended prison term.<\/p>\n
Eileen Joyce Davey, 69, was sentenced in the Supreme Court in Launceston on Tuesday after pleading guilty to one count of arson earlier this year.<\/p>\n
The court heard that in October 2024, she set fire to a property on Montana Road near Deloraine, after being issued a vacate notice.<\/p>\n
“Before finally leaving, when everyone else had left, you lit the fire,” said Justice Robert Pearce.<\/p>\n
“You said you were angry \u2026 if you cannot live there, nobody else would because you would burn it down.”<\/p>\n
Davey was sentenced in the Launceston Supreme Court on Tuesday. (ABC News: Loretta Lohberger)<\/p>\n
The court heard Davey, now of Ravenswood, was motivated by a family breakdown.<\/p>\n
The mother of four had lived in the property with her husband Alan Walker for 38 years.<\/p>\n
However, in 2023 Mr Walker became ill and moved in with Davey’s daughter-in-law.<\/p>\n
After he died in December 2023, Davey was told that the home she had lived in for almost 40 years had been left to her daughter-in-law.<\/p>\n
Justice Pearce said Davey’s feelings of “betrayal” were “easy to understand”.<\/p>\n
“He did not make you a beneficiary of his will,” he said.<\/p>\n
The court heard the property was “largely destroyed” in the blaze.<\/p>\n
Justice Pearce considered Davey’s early guilty plea, and the fact she had come from “considerable hardship”.<\/p>\n
He said her poor level of education contributed to her inability to navigate the circumstances she faced.<\/p>\n
“You did not seek advice or challenge Mr Walker’s failure to provide for you,” Justice Pearce said.<\/p>\n
“Your illiteracy and lack of knowledge contributed to that situation.”<\/p>\n
The court heard Davey carried several chronic health problems and was now the primary carer of one of her grandchildren.<\/p>\n
“I have concluded I should adopt a merciful approach,” Justice Pearce said.<\/p>\n
Her two-year prison sentence was wholly suspended for 18 months.<\/p>\n
A compensation order of $270,000 was also made, although Justice Pearce acknowledged there was “little prospect” of Davey paying the amount.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A northern Tasmanian woman who burnt down her home of almost four decades has been handed a suspended…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65190,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2034,22,21,6305,80679,80680,80681,8961],"class_list":["post-65189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-arson","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-deloraine","tag-eileen-joyce-davey","tag-family-home-arson","tag-justice-robert-pearce","tag-supreme-court"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65189\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}