Sydney construction boss George Alex has avoided going to jail over a "serious case of domestic violence" in which he sent terrorising messages to his former lover telling her to "neck" herself.
In the months after Alex and his then girlfriend Anna Lee broke up in April last year, the court heard she fled the country to try to get away from him.
From August, the 44-year-old construction industry identity sent a series of abusive emails and texts to Ms Lee and her family.
"The threats that were made are extremely violent and menacing. They are disturbing both in their content and in their tone," Magistrate Chris O'Brien said when sentencing him on Wednesday.
Calling her a "cow", a "monkey" and a "very filthy girl", Alex said in one email, "U don't deserve anyone to make you feel happy".
In another he spurted: "Ur a waste of space. Neck yourself. Before I get too u".
To her mother Emmy he wrote: "Ur husband is lucky I haven't sent my men to his office to get all my money I spent on her face nose .. ur lucky I have a heart. U tell the prostitute if she ever comes back she will get hurt".
In sentencing Alex for one count of using a carriage service to threaten to kill, Mr O'Brien said while it was not strictly a domestic violence offence, in his view it couldn't be categorised in any other way.
The messages were demeaning and would have created in the minds of Ms Lee and her family "a level of fear and terror that is not easy to comprehend".
But Alex's lawyer John Hajje said the messages were a result of an undiagnosed bipolar disorder and that the 44-year-old was now medicated, "back on track" and reconciled with his wife.
"He is moving on with his life ... You can have no fear of seeing Alex in this court again," Mr Hajje told Downing Centre Local Court.
Alex, he said, was "highly thought of by his peers" who couldn't believe he would behave in such an offensive manner.
Mr O'Brien accepted Alex had a mental illness and sentenced him to 16 months imprisonment.
But this will be served in the community rather than in jail, by way of an intensive corrections order.
Outside court Alex was asked if he was sorry about the messages.
"Always, yeah," he told reporters.
It comes after the royal commission into union corruption late last year heard allegations Alex's scaffolding companies made regular illicit payments of thousands of dollars to Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union officials in return for favourable treatment in workplace deals.
But Alex denied the allegations.
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