North Queensland’s Cairns district court sentenced Karen Kaur Warburton, 50, to five years jail, suspended after 16 months, on Tuesday for trying to ensure Queensland police inspector Don McKay would “never walk or talk again” after their messy split.

The Daily Mail reported that Warburton had pleaded guilty to one count of “attempting to procure grievous bodily harm” and one count of “attempting to procure a malicious act with intent”.

Judge Joshua Treviño said her actions could “only be described as cold and calculated”.

“The seriousness in your offending is to be found not in the fact that no harm ultimately came to the complainant but rather that you made such plans in the first place,” he said.

“You had multiple opportunities to reassess, to stop, to go no further with your plans. But you didn’t do that.”

Warburton and McKay were in a relationship from March 2020 but had an “acrimonious” breakup in early 2021.

Between April 1 and Oct 6, 2021, she paid Andrew Bown, a local resident, about A$3,000 to severely injure her former boyfriend.

She provided Bown photographs of McKay and his address to help get the job done.

The court also heard that Bown had carried out several attempts to harm McKay.

In one incident, another man Bown had recruited had sprayed McKay’s home with lighter fluid and set it on fire, resulting in damage amounting to A$20,000.

Bown had also attempted to recruit another person, but the offer was quickly declined.

In November 2022, the Cairns district court sentenced Bown to three-and-a-half years imprisonment, suspended after six months.

It was reported that Warburton migrated to Australia with her former husband in 2007 after finishing her nursing studies in the UK.