Warwick man faces court after using money transfers to breach protection notice

A magistrate has been left stunned following a man’s ‘disturbing’ method to inflict unwanted contact on a woman through bizarre means. Read what happened in court.

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A magistrate has been left in disbelief after a man turned a convenient service into a method to orchestrate harassment.

The offending took place in March this year, with a Warwick man - who cannot be named for legal reasons- using a mobile cash transfer service as a method of contacting a woman who had a protection order against him.

In a “sneaky way”, the 26-year-old breached his order by transferring a small sum of money to her account, along with a message.

The court was told the messages were sent alongside a ‘fast transfer’ of $3.11 at around 1am, and said “do you still love me” and “has anyone proposed to you yet?”

Minutes later, the man sent another transaction asking if the woman “still loved him”.

The father-of-two was quick to cease the activity as he “pulled his head in,” defence lawyer Hamish Chapman told the court.

The woman however, was not happy with the unwanted contact and quickly reported the matter to police.

“She clearly did not want you to contact her, because you she made a complaint to the police,” magistrate Virginia Sturgess told the man.

The magistrate revealed the cultural dancer had “quite a bit of domestic violence offending in his history” which she labelled as “disturbing,” which included prior charges of multiple order breaches and an assault occasioning bodily harm charge.

The man pleaded guilty in Warwick Magistrates Court on September 11 to one charge of aggravated breaching of a protection order.

“The money transfer is just an exchange to engage in contact with the woman,” the magistrate said.

Ms Sturgess said this was a “new technique” offenders use for “sneakily” breaching orders and having contact with a victim, where the money was simply an “excuse of adding a message with it”.

“You cannot use this financial transfer as an excuse to ask the woman if anyone had proposed to her or if she still loves you because none of those things are any of your business and you’ve got to move on,” Ms Sturgess said.

“You’ve got no business to be contacting her in this way and clearly, she doesn’t want your contact at all.”

The man was also sentenced on an unrelated stealing charge from March 2022, in which he concealed a massage gun from a Warwick pharmacy in his pants before leaving the store.

For both matters, the man was sentenced to a total of three months imprisonment, released immediately on parole.

Convictions were recorded.

Originally published as Warwick man faces court after using money transfers to breach protection notice