Anthony James Hewes appeared before Mr Murray yesterday for sentence after pleading guilty on an earlier occasion to one count of damaging property by fire and one count of being armed with intent to commit an indictable offence.

Police estimate the damage caused by Hewes to the house where he was living at 170 Raye Street to be in the tens of thousands of dollars.

But Mr Murray noted no compensation was being sought with the criminal charges.

There was some discussion that perhaps compensation was being sought through the civil court.

Mr Murray said he had heard the Department of Housing did not seek compensation for malicious damage because it had a budget to cover such things.

He said if that was true "that is just Monty Python stuff".

Mr Murray said he could not see why the general public should be responsible for paying for the damage.

"I want to know if there is an application (for compensation) from the department and, if not, why not," Mr Murray said.

He adjourned the case until November 16.

Police facts tendered to the court yesterday said Hewes set fire to his house just before 5.30pm on December 31 last year.

He had pulled a gas heater away from the wall and set fire to gas leaking from a pipe.

When police arrived they found a bloodied Hewes sitting on a plastic chair in his driveway while neighbours were trying to put out the blaze.

The facts said that as a police officer approached Hewes he yelled obscenities and stood up with a large rock in his hand, which he threw at the officer.

When interviewed by police, Hewes claimed to have consumed 10 valium tablets, a 375 millilitre bottle of Sambuca and 24 cans of full-strength beer in the four hours leading up to the fire.

The facts said Hewes told police he had wanted to blow himself up.