A Brisbane woman spat at police during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic after she forced her way into a neighbour's house only to be stabbed with a pitchfork.
Samantha Lea Parker admitted breaking into her 65-year-old neighbour's house and wielding pruning shears after downing half a bottle of bourbon on April 17 last year.
The 40-year-old mother was motivated to "smash up" the home of Robert Hodson after a perceived threat was made against her and her children by a woman living at the same home.
Parker knocked on her neighbour's door before being told to "keep away" when Mr Hodson saw her then-partner and co-accused Brandon James Ogborne, the Brisbane District Court was told on Tuesday.
Mr Hodson armed himself with a pitchfork and hid in the bedroom with the woman, now holding a baseball bat, before the pair broke in through a sliding door.
Ogborne had a dumbbell pole and Parker picked up a pair of long-handled pruning shears she found at the house.
She broke a window and kicked in a toilet door before realising where her neighbour was hiding.
Parker swung the shears at Mr Hodson before he retaliated with his pitchfork, injuring both the intruders.
Parker also suffered an injury from the baseball bat.
They left the home and Ogborne was soon arrested, but it took much longer for Parker to be subdued, the court was told.
The ambulance she was travelling in to receive treatment was forced to pull over when she became agitated and tampered with equipment.
She ran away and was found outside a shop in the Brisbane suburb of Wynnum West.
Here she kicked and spat at a police officer before "indiscriminately" spitting at paramedics and eventually being sedated.
While the prosecution argued Parker was more culpable than her co-accused as she led the charge to her neighbour's home, her lawyer Mark McCarthy said there was opportunism in her offending as she did not go armed with the garden shears.
"The secateurs used by Ms Parker were collected from the premises," he said.
Parker, who pleaded guilty to four charges of serious assault, and one each of wilful damage and burglary, was jailed for two and a half years.
She will be eligible for parole on November 14 with time served.
Ogborne was also sentenced to two-and-a-half years after pleading guilty in January.
Judge David Reid ordered he be eligible for parole immediately.
