A man who admitted threatening the lives of several people and damaging his ex-wife’s car was given two years’ probation yesterday.

Paulo Medeiros, 44, pleaded guilty in Magistrates’ Court to three counts of using threatening words and damaging a car belonging to Samantha Smith.

The court heard that on August 23, Juliet Pearman-Tucker, a relative of Ms Smith, visited Medeiros’s Devonshire home to collect his six-year-old daughter.

Medeiros told Ms Pearman-Tucker: “I’m not going to be around for much longer.”

He added: “The only thing I have on my mind is to kill Juliet and then myself. If I’m going out of this world, I’m taking her with me.”

Ms Pearman-Tucker left the house and called police, who arrested Medeiros that night.

The court also heard Ms Smith visited Medeiros’s house on August 9 to collect their daughter when Medeiros started to shout at Ms Smith and threatened to kill her and her family.

Ms Smith got into her car and tried to leave, but Medeiros kicked the car and damaged the front fender.

He shouted: “I’m going to come to the house when everyone is asleep and I’m going to slit everyone’s throat and then I’m going to kill myself.”

Ms Smith drove away and later contacted police, who arrested Medeiros the next day.

The court heard that the damage to Ms Smith’s car was estimated at $1,941.

Auralee Cassidy, for the defence, said that her client suffered from behavioural and substance abuse problems that had been aggravated by a “family dispute” over his daughter.

She added that Medeiros was prepared to pay for repairs to the car.

Juan Wolffe, the senior magistrate, sentenced Medeiros yesterday to two years’ probation on the condition that he stay away from drugs and alcohol, take random drug and alcohol tests, take part in counselling programmes if required and to report to court and court services when ordered.

He also ordered Medeiros to pay the car repair bill by the end of the month.

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