A Branxholm man who last year pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting two goats in a bathroom has appeared in court again after allegedly setting a house on fire.
Jacob Heatlie Johnston, 21, is accused of starting a fire that destroyed a home in the small north-east community last week.
Emergency services were called to the property on Albert Street around 9:40pm on Thursday, April 4.
Crews from the Tasmania Fire Service were able to contain the blaze, but not before an estimated $200,000 in damages were caused.
Johnston is facing charges for aggravated burglary, trespass, stealing, destroying property, breach of a restraint order and unlawfully setting fire to property.
He remains in custody and is scheduled to reappear via video link on April 10.
At his last appearance in the Supreme Court in October 2023, the Judge said Johnston was “of extremely low intelligence consistent with a mild intellectual disability”.
“He spent a good deal of time in the bush, where he built himself a shack, doing woodcutting, building, cooking and fishing,” they said.
“He has regularly used cannabis since about age 12. When he turned 18 he fell into bad company and began abusing alcohol and using methylamphetamine.”
The Judge said Johnston was, at the time, living an “isolated existence” in a “dilapidated caravan” in the yard of his father’s house.
