A Hackett man who used a tracker to stalk his former partner has tried to justify his actions by saying he was trying to get back the car he had given to the woman.
The 44-year-old, who is not being named in order to protect the victim's identity, appeared in the ACT Magistrates Court on Friday after pleading guilty to stalking and contravening a family violence order.
Facts tendered in court state the man had purchased a Holden Cruz sedan, which was exclusively driven by his then-partner, in May 2021.
When the relationship ended the following month, the man placed a tracking device underneath the front-left panel guard of the Holden Cruz sedan without the knowledge of his ex-girlfriend.
The tracking device contained a TPG mobile SIM card, which was in the name of the man.
It allowed him to receive text messages with coordinates and a hyperlink to Google Maps with the exact location of the device.
The man had saved the phone number for the tracker in his phone as "GPS Dog".
The same day the tracker was installed, the woman began a job at a Fyshwick brothel, which she had not told her ex-boyfriend about.
The woman had also provided a photograph of the man to the receptionist and advised them that she wanted to be alerted if her former partner came in.
The same evening the man attended the brothel, giving a fake name and asking which women were available before leaving when he was told no one was.
A staff member who recognised the man alerted the woman, who then watched internal CCTV and identified him.
The man then contacted a mutual friend of his and his former partner's, asking him to attend the business and attempt to speak to the woman.
The friend also showed up to the brothel and tried to message the woman, who did not reply, and he too left.
The woman soon contacted police, who interviewed her and did a sweep of her car but did not locate the tracking device.
Across seven consecutive days, the man had used the tracking device a total of 106 times to find the location of his former partner's vehicle.
In late June, the woman was granted an interim family violence order against the man, forbidding him from talking to her directly.
The woman then travelled to Batemans Bay and, while there, thought she saw the man's black Mercedes parked further down the street from her, however this was never confirmed.
When she came back to Canberra, she had her vehicle searched and the tracking device was located.
Police were called and officers seized the device and removed the SIM card.
The man had used the tracker an additional 23 times in four days, during which he also phoned the woman and occasionally turned his call settings to private so his number was not visible.
The man breached the family violence order a total of 10 times by doing this.
A police search of the man's home in Hackett found a black Samsung mobile phone that had internet searches for the brothel, phone call logs to his former partner and messages containing Google Maps locations received from the tracking device.
The man was arrested and spent two nights in custody before being granted bail.
On Friday, the court heard the victim's statement, in which she said felt like she was "being choked at night" and that she could no longer sleep with the lights off.
The man's lawyer, Michael Kukulies-Smith, argued the man should receive a good behaviour order or community service because his offending was "not the person he normally is" and he "accepts in hindsight" his behaviour was wrong and "a form of coercive control".
Mr Kukulies-Smith also told the court "the allegations and concerns flowed both ways" and the man had tried to report the "'theft" of the Holden Cruz to police but "had not received any assistance", so he took "matters into his own hands".
Prosecutor David Swan disagreed with this assertion, saying police had told the man the dispute was a civil matter and argued the man should be given a prison sentence.
Magistrate Glenn Theakston said the offending was "concerning", calling it a "modern offence of stalking" using a "readily accessible" tracking device to "keep the woman under surveillance".
Mr Theakston imposed a $1500 fine, with six months to pay, for the stalking offence.
He sentenced the man to two months in prison for the contravention of the family violence order, but suspended the jail term on the condition the man enter into a 12-month good behaviour order.
