A survivor of the Black Saturday bushfires has been released from court after smashing a young mother's head with an iron bar after a generous thank-you gift turned sour.
Madison Gentsch, 28, brutally assaulted her former girlfriend just weeks after giving the woman her Ford Falcon as a thank you for letting her stay in her home.
However, their relationship soured when the woman advertised the attached personalized “EATZWA” license plates – an eshay term for “sweet” – for $10,000 on Facebook Marketplace.
Gentsch was then asked to leave the premises in Frankston, in Melbourne's south-east.
She then planned a violent ambush to get the car back, and the subsequent attack left the young mother bleeding in a gutter outside an IGA supermarket on June 27 last year.
An employee of Gentsch arranged the purchase of the plates and a meeting outside the IGA on Beach Street in Frankston.
When the woman arrived in the Falcon, she was ambushed and violently beaten.
Gentsch, accompanied by a male accomplice, jumped out of a black SUV and attacked her former boyfriend and a male passenger with an iron bar.
Melbourne woman Madison Gentsch (pictured) 'planned' a vicious attack on a former girlfriend after changing her mind after gifting the woman a Ford Falcon as a thank you gift
She punched the woman in the head several times and tried to pull her out of the car by her hair before finally gaining access to the car.
In a final act of violence, Gentsch slammed the car door on the woman's legs three times before driving away, leaving her in the gutter.
Her male accomplice drove the black SUV from the scene.
Witnesses called police and the victim was taken to hospital with multiple head wounds.
Bodycam footage from a responding officer, showing the woman bleeding and moaning on the concrete, was played in court on Wednesday.
Gentsch and the man quickly drove to the Gold Coast but were stopped by police as they approached Surfers Paradise in the Falcon.
Gentsch (pictured) attacked the woman with an iron bar after she was evicted from her Frankston home due to an 'ongoing conflict', a court was told on Wednesday
Gentsch and a male associate were arrested by police on the Gold Coast after leaving Victoria immediately following the attack.
Gentsch and the man were extradited back to Victoria on August 8.
Police asked Gentsch if she knew before the assault that the woman would leave her home.
“She told someone she was going to be there at the meeting place to sell her license plates,” Gentsch told officers.
That gave her the 'green light' to 'get what's hers'.
The court was told Gentsch 'would not reveal whose car she was in or who she was with' because they would 'kill me'.
She claimed the man who arrived in the Ford Falcon with her former boyfriend had facial tattoos and an extendable baton.
In a victim impact statement read to the court on Wednesday, the victim said Gentsch “destroyed her passion for helping others.”
“I still live in fear that they will come and attack me again,” she said.
'I've been struggling every day since the attack… I'm nervous and tense… I'd rather be in my room, which is my safe zone, than spend time with my children.
“Since the attack, I can't see life the way I used to… I suffer from nightmares.”
The victim said the attack had 'destroyed my passion for helping others' and she lives in fear that Gentsch (pictured) and her male accomplice will attack her again
Gentsch, who now has tattoos on her neck and face, is unemployed and receives a biweekly informal care allowance.
Her family survived the 2009 Black Saturday fires in King Lake when Gentsch was just a child, the court heard.
Judge Richard Maidment described the attack as a 'vicious attack' on someone who had shown 'considerable kindness'.
“It is a serious incident of its kind,” Judge Maidment told the court.
'A punishment that not only deserves a severe punishment from you, but also a punishment that can deter others from committing crimes (and) taking the law into their own hands, as you have done.
“This was planned by you, you implicated others, and you carried out a silent, stultifying attack on someone who had shown you great kindness, even though… you may have been upset when you were evicted.”
Gentsch pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two months in prison in the Melbourne County Court on Wednesday.
After serving 107 days in custody, she was immediately released on an 18-month community corrections order.
