Suicide threat used for control

“THE rope is dead tight here c--, I’ll drop here soon you f--ing dog, answer your phone.”

This was just one of the 150 voicemail messages a 27-yearold man left on the phone of his ex-partner between 12.13am and 1.30am on July 8 as he attempted to guilt her into resuming their relationship.

The barrage of calls and text messages only ended after the young mum agreed to leave her phone on and the line to him open.

“She slept for eight hours with an open line beside her,” police prosecutor Chris Willson told the Toowoomba Magistrates Court.

The man appeared in court on Wednesday via a prison video link to plead guilty to two domestic violence protection order breaches and one count of obstructing police.

Senior Constable Willson told the court the man had a long history of breaching domestic violence orders and was serving a suspended jail sentence when he committed fresh breaches against two women, between June and August.

Both women were mothers of the man’s children and all the breaches involved threats to kill himself if the women didn’t give the man access to their homes, social media accounts or children.

Defence lawyer Kirstie Smith told the court the man had not properly dealt with losing two brothers to suicide.

“The offending occurred on the anniversary of the deaths of his brothers …” she said.

Magistrate Louise Shephard accepted that the man had ongoing mental health issues and unresolved grief but had also exposed himself to a jail term. Ms Shephard ordered nine months in jail for each breach but let the man out with immediate parole after taking into account his pre-sentence custody.