Former Canberra Rebels president Ali Bilal trying to inspire behavioural change with phone threats, court told

Ali Hassan Bilal, 50, pleaded guilty in April to five charges of using a carriage service to either menace or threaten serious harm.

Bilal was the Rebels' ACT chapter president and national sergeant-at-arms when he launched expletive-laden phone tirades at often bewildered victims, who tried to pacify him without much success.

Prosecutor Beth Morrisroe played one of the calls, which were recorded while police were lawfully monitoring Bilal's communications last year, when the Wollogorang resident faced the ACT Magistrates Court on Thursday.

Bilal demanded to know where the recipient of this call was before threatening to punch and stomp on the man's head, warning the victim would be in hospital for a week once he had finished with him.

"Twenty-four hours you've got to get out of my state, otherwise I'm gonna shoot you," Bilal roared at the man, whom he called a "f---in' pussy flap c---".

The confused man on the other end of the phone nervously gibbered back at different stages, asking what he had done to upset the offender.

Bilal's barrister, Margaret Jones SC, told the court her client had not intended to carry out any of the threats he made, and that he had just been trying to dissuade that victim from taking drugs and having a relationship with another man's girlfriend.

Ms Jones told the court further threatening and menacing calls, which she conceded were "not pretty", also involved Bilal seeking to inspire change.

"The purpose of these phone calls was to persuade [the recipients] to change their behaviour," she said.

"The way [Bilal] went about it was completely wrong, obviously."

Ms Jones added that Bilal had, since his arrest in December 2021, "stepped away" from the Rebels and "taken steps" to address his aggression and the way he approached "problem-solving".

"His prospects of rehabilitation are good now that he has left the [bikie] club," the barrister said.

She ultimately argued good behaviour orders would be appropriate penalties, saying Bilal was "under no misapprehension" that police would be watching him and waiting to "pounce" in the event of any breach.

Ms Morrisroe questioned whether there was anything in the phone calls to suggest they were motivated by what Ms Jones said they were.

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She pointed to the one supposedly related to drugs and a relationship, saying it was hard to figure out where those things were mentioned.

The prosecutor urged Chief Magistrate Lorraine Walker to focus on the people on the other end of the phone, saying Bilal's abuse of them was not made any less serious by the supposedly noble intent of his words.

Ms Morrisroe sought some form of jail sentence, and also applied for a non-association order to restrain Bilal from contact with certain people.

Ms Jones argued against some of the proposed people being included, but not others.

Ms Walker, who described Bilal as "an angry man", said she would hand down a sentence on August 2.

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