Crown Advocate Fiona Russell said the threats were “numerous and persistent” and contained highly abusive language that was “extremely distressing” to read.
Ferbrache sent 18 messages threatening physical violence against the woman, six of which contained explicitly threats to kill her.
The defendant “accepted that I was a bit nasty” and that she “might have been a bit upset”
Pictured: Ferbrache had an unenviable criminal record.
References were made to Ferbrache’s “unenviable record” of previous convictions, however Defence Advocate Liam Roffey said there had been a significant turnaround in his client’s offending behaviour in recent years, with the last offence coming in 2013.
The messages were triggered by a series of events which took place the month before and, Advocate Roffey said, there was never any intention to carry them out. The messages themselves were “appalling” and “indefensible”, he admitted, but said his client wanted to change his ways.
“His victim awareness is limited but it is not non-existent,” he said. “He does feel bad for what he has done.”
Judge Graeme McKerrell was not persuaded.
“I am not convinced that he is truly or genuinely willing to change,” he said.
Addressing Ferbrache, he said: “The messages you sent were quite simply appalling, they were abusive and they were threatening. It is hard to imagine if they could have been any worse in content. They were persistent and it would have been bad enough if they spanned six days or six hours; instead they spanned a period of six months.”
Despite that, Ferbrache appeared to see himself “as much the victim as the perpetrator”. He had breached his bail conditions once already and Judge McKerrell said a prison sentence was unavoidable.
Pictured top: Ferbrache was sentenced in the Magistrate’s Court.