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A young person from the Land Down Under has faced legal proceedings after reportedly defacing a large art piece of a legendary being by applying plastic eyes to it.

Amelia Vanderhorst, aged 19, appeared via phone at Mount Gambier Magistrates Court in the state of South Australia on Tuesday, facing with a single charge of damaging property.

Officials commented at the time of the recent event, the municipal authorities said that surveillance video captured a individual putting fake eyes on the sculpture, which locals have nicknamed the “Cast in Blue”.

Ms Vanderhorst did not enter a plea and told the judge she was ill, as reported by news outlets, with the magistrate advising her to find a lawyer before her upcoming hearing in the final month of the year.

A day after the alleged incident, the local mayor said that repairs to the much-loved community sculpture would be costly as the stickers were impossible to be removed without harming the sculpture.

“This wilful damage to a valued public artwork is unacceptable and disrespectful,” Mayor Lynette Martin said in September. “It is not harmless fun, it is pricey - it is also disappointing to those people of our society who have embraced Cast in Blue.”

The mayor added the council would pursue the “significant” restoration expenses from those responsible for the vandalism.

When the artwork was first proposed, it received mixed reactions from the local community due to its cost and design.

Costing A$136,000 (eighty-nine thousand US dollars; sixty-eight thousand pounds), the sculpture represents a legendary giant animal, with the sculpture’s designers inspired by an ancient anteater-like marsupial found in local caves that was “huge, slow-moving, and intriguing”.