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A young person from Australia has faced legal proceedings after allegedly defacing a sizable art piece of a mythical creature by affixing googly eyes to it.

Amelia Vanderhorst, aged 19, participated remotely at Mount Gambier Magistrates Court in the state of South Australia on that day, facing with a single charge of property damage.

Officials commented at the moment of the September incident, the local council explained that surveillance video showed a person putting artificial eyes on the artwork, which residents have nicknamed the “Blue Blob”.

The accused did not enter a plea and told the judge she was ill, as reported by media sources, with the judge advising her to secure a lawyer before her next court date in December.

The following day the reported event, the city leader said that restoration to the popular community sculpture would be expensive as the stickers were impossible to be detached without harming the sculpture.

“This intentional vandalism to a cherished community art is unacceptable and disrespectful,” City of Mount Gambier mayor remarked in September. “It is not innocent amusement, it is costly - it is also frustrating to those members of our society who have embraced the Blue Blob.”

She added the local government would seek the “significant” repair costs from those responsible for the vandalism.

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

Costing A$136,000 ($89,000; sixty-eight thousand pounds), the sculpture depicts a mythical megafauna, with the sculpture’s designers influenced by an prehistoric anteater-like marsupial found in local caves that was “massive, lumbering and fascinating”.