A colonial-era statue honouring a controversial former premier who mutilated the body of an Aboriginal man has been vandalised and cut down from its plinth in Hobart’s CBD.

On Wednesday morning, the statue was found face down on the ground next to the plinth, after being sawn off through the ankles.

The plinth was spray painted with the graffiti “What goes around” and “decolonize”.

The downing of the statue comes a day after someone attempted to saw through the statue’s ankles but stopped halfway.

Hobart City Council said it had reviewed CCTV since that incident and asked for an increase in police patrols.

Last year, the council voted to remove the statue, which was appealed in the Tasmanian Tribunal of Civil and Administrative Tribunal.

The outcome of the appeal is due today. 

The council’s chief executive, Michael Stretton, condemned the vandalism. 

“It’s disappointing when you see an act like this where it has taken the future of the statue into their own hands,” he told ABC Mornings.

In 1869, politician and surgeon William Crowther cut off and stole the skull of Aboriginal man William Lanne, with the intention of sending it to London’s Royal College of Surgeons.

To conceal the act, he replaced the skull he stole with one from another corpse.

It is believed Lanne’s skull was taken to the Royal College of Science when Crowther’s son moved to London to study.

In 1889, a statue of Crowther — who served as premier for less than a year — was erected in Hobart’s Franklin Square.

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