Geoffrey Michael Greer pleads guilty in Toowoomba District Court to using a carriage service to make threats to kill

A 55-year-old Toowoomba man didn’t take kindly to being told his Centrelink payment was being cut, launching a 20-hour campaign of threatening emails to kill his case worker.

A Toowoomba man who sent a series of emails to his employment case manager threatening to kill and harm her has been handed a jail sentence.

Geoffrey Michael Greer had been on a three-way phone hook-up with a Centrelink operator and his employment agency case manager when told his Centrelink payments would be suspended for a month, Toowoomba District Court was told.

The employment agency worker hung up from the call but an upset Greer turned to his email and over a 20-hour period on September 3 and 4, 2021, fired off 35 emails to the 58-year-old woman, the court was told.

Commonwealth Department of Public Prosecutions federal prosecutor Byron Philp told the court six of the emails were threats to kill and included that he was “coming to kill you” and that “you’re number one on my hit list”.

The other emails were of threatening or intimidating nature, he said.

Greer, now 55, pleaded guilty to using a carriage service to make threats to kill.

Mr Philp told the court Greer had previous convictions for similar offending in 2012, 2018 and 2019 which were all dealt with in the Toowoomba Magistrates Court jurisdiction.

Greer’s barrister Jens Streit said Greer had suffered mental health issues for some years some of which had been wrongly diagnosed or undiagnosed.

On this particular day, his client had been drinking heavily and told the psychiatrist who compiled a report on him for the court that he was drinking three to four litres of port a day.

Since this day of offending his client had been on bail and had not reoffended or breached his bail, had been receiving counselling, been properly diagnosed and placed on appropriate medication and found himself a new job, Mr Streits said.

His client’s employer had provided a reference to the court in which Greer is spoken highly of, he said.

Judge Suzanne Sheridan told Greer he needed supervision in the community to help with his rehabilitation.

Judge Sheridan sentenced him to six months in jail but ordered he be released immediately upon entering into a recognisance of $500 to be of good behaviour for two years and comply with an 18-month probation order.