Thi Ban Le (pictured) was found not guilty to unlawfully causing serious harm due to her mental impariment

A woman who horrifically attacked a man with a meat cleaver was plagued by mental illness after she watched an albino crocodile called Michael Jackson kill her husband.

Thi Ban Le, 58, attacked her neighbour in Lambells Lagoon, Darwin, in December 2015 with 30cm meat cleaver, cutting his wrist and face.

But Le was found not guilty of unlawfully causing serious harm because of her mental health issues which stemmed from watching her husband killed, the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory found.

The terrifying incident occurred almost a year and a half after the gruesome death of her husband, market gardener and fisherman, Lanh Van Tran.

The husband and wife had been fishing on the Adelaide River, 60km east of Darwin when the rare, albino crocodile lunged at her husband, 57.

Le watched her husband die in front of her, with him screaming: 'Oh my god, I'm dead.'

This horrific attack pushed Le into a downward spiral of mental health problems and and grief.

A court psychiatrist found that she suffered psychotic symptoms in the lead-up to attacking her neighbour in December 2015.

Le screamed 'I will chop you. I will kill you,' when she lunged at her neighbour during a dispute over her crops and the irrigation system she used on her farm.

The victim suffered a blow to his wrist and a sliced tendon when he began to run away and escape Le and her swinging cleaver.

Le attacked her neighbour almost a year and a half after she saw her husband killed by an albino crocodile called Michael Jackson

The victim sought protection behind a plastic chair but Le continued to hack at him, striking his face.

He eventually sought safety by locking himself in a bathroom while Le cleaned her clothes and the cleaver.

The victim underwent surgery for his injuries and experienced a lengthy recovery when his wounds were contaminated.

Le displayed schizophrenic symptoms following the attack. In her delusions, she believed that her victim and others were trying to poison her.

She also told police that she had not attacked her victim but was instead in bed.

If Le had not been mentally impaired, Justice Peter Barr said she would have faced three years imprisonment for the crime.

'The frenzied attack with a meat cleaver was accompanied by a statement of intent to kill, a terrifying threat in the circumstances, particularly when Ms Le then chased the badly wounded victim and inflicted further wounds with the meat cleaver,' he told the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory.

Le has been ordered strict supervision by mental health experts. Justice Barr also imposed that she does not make contact with her victim, drink alcohol or take illicit drugs.