History of violence by stalker of Monk

James Scott McCabe, 32, had three prior convictions for assault between 2004 and 2010, the Launceston Magistrates Court was told on Wednesday.

Magistrate Sharon Cure said that in June 2008 he attacked a policeman during a psychotic episode.

‘‘He did so because he thought that Ms Monk was being held by pimps and prostitutes ... and he was being prevented from helping her,’’ Ms Cure read from McCabe’s psychiatric report.

In Queensland in 2010, McCabe was convicted for assault occasioning bodily harm and having entered a place to commit an indictable offence.

McCabe, who has paranoid schizophrenia and stalked Ms Monk while he was high on ice and speed, avoided jail for those crimes and again for his latest offending.

Ms Cure jailed McCabe for eight months, wholly suspended for two years, ordered him to comply with an 18-month probation order and imposed an indefinite restraint order upon him to protect Ms Monk.

She said McCabe was an unsuitable vehicle for general deterrence because of his ‘‘parlous mental health’’, but combined with his drug abuse he was at risk of reoffending.

Ms Cure said McCabe told the writer of his pre-sentence report that he continued to use ice and speed because his medication controlled his delusions but not his flashbacks.

The report also stated that McCabe believed his psychosis was the devil’s work to drag him away from being a Christian.

McCabe had previously pleaded guilty to stalking and two breaches of bail.

His thousands of Tweets to Ms Monk were disturbing, explicit and violent and referred to god, Satan, Hitler, war, bestiality, paedophilia and his hallucinations about Ms Monk being raped.

McCabe believed that he was ‘‘saving’’ Ms Monk when he stalked her between January 2010 and December 2013.