Court told of text kill threats

A CASE worker feared for her life after a client threatened to kill her in a series of abusive and threatening text messages.

Claire Nicoll, 25, of no fixed address, faced Geelong Magistrates Court on charges of using a carriage service to make threats to inflict serious injury.

The court heard Nicoll, who entered a guilty plea, became angry with her case worker in August last year and sent her several abusive messages, including some saying she would “kill you now” and “mark my words”.

In one text message read out in court, she told the case worker “you and your boss can die together for your unprofessional mistakes . . . you think it’s a joke I’m sure because (you think) you’re all so professional”.

“You’re losing everything and dying because of your lack of morals,” she said.

The court heard Nicolls also sent 26 threatening messages to another woman around the same time, calling her a “dead dog”, a “rat dog” and asking if the woman would be “scared because I’m not dead?”

Her defence lawyer submitted the woman had not complied with former community corrections orders because she had autism and had been homeless, making it difficult to complete tasks, but she wanted to try again.

An officer strongly advised the court against placing Nicoll on another CCO,

“No corrections case manager needs to go to work and be subjected to occupational violence by a person simply because they have autism spectrum disorder,” the officer told Magistrate Simon Guthrie.

“I don’t believe that’s a reason for the aggressive and unacceptable behaviour and no therapeutic alliance will be made with a person who presents with such aggression.

“I highly doubt any assessor would find her suitable.”

Nicoll kept telling the court the fault for not completing the CCO or showing up to appointments should be with the community officers, who “don’t return my calls” and “haven’t been engaging with me”.

Reading from reports, Mr Guthrie refuted this, telling Nicoll, “It’s not just one service, every service has been offered to you. You’re blaming everyone else”.