![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/11d8288ead1be0c7b0ff0a7c4ecc3c83.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nThe former school teacher who sexually abused former Australian of the Year Grace Tame has been deemed unfit to stand trial in the Hobart Magistrates Court.<\/p>\n
Nicolaas Ockert Bester was charged with three counts of using a carriage service to menace, harass or cause offence in 2022.<\/p>\n
It is alleged that Mr Bester made public posts on Twitter, now X, in relation to and directed at Ms Tame that a reasonable person “would regard as being, in all circumstances, menacing”.<\/p>\n
He pleaded not guilty to all three charges in 2023.<\/p>\n
Mr Bester was sentenced to jail in 2011 for sexually abusing Ms Tame and possessing child exploitation material.<\/p>\n
At the time of the crime, he was a school teacher and Ms Tame was a 15-year-old student.<\/p>\n
Sexual assault support services:Other helplines:<\/p>\n
In the court this morning, Magistrate Andrew McKee said he accepted the joint submission from prosecution and defence that Mr Bester was unfit to stand trial.<\/p>\n
Magistrate McKee cited medical evidence provided to the court earlier this year in handing down his determination.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The court was previously told Nicolaas Bester has vascular dementia. (ABC News: Scout Wallen)<\/p>\n
“I therefore find that Mr Bester is unfit to stand trial and will not become fit to stand trial in the next 12 months,” he said.<\/p>\n
In 2024, Mr Bester’s lawyer, Todd Kovacic, told the court his client had vascular dementia and his fitness to face a contested hearing was an issue.<\/p>\n
Speaking outside the court later, Mr Kovacic said the magistrate’s decision was the “only choice the court had”.<\/p>\n
“We’ve been here for a few years now trying to sort this out,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Everything could happen more efficiently in a perfect world but it happened as expeditiously as we could to get it to happen.”<\/p>\n
Magistrate Mckee said the matter would return to court for a “special hearing” in July, but a directions hearing would first take place in April.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The former school teacher who sexually abused former Australian of the Year Grace Tame has been deemed unfit…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":500041,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[64,63,10353,106133,210458,82112,251538,1314,85,251539],"class_list":{"0":"post-500040","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-grace-tame","11":"tag-grooming","12":"tag-harass","13":"tag-harassment","14":"tag-nicolaas-bester","15":"tag-social-media","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-who-abused-grace-tame"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/500041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}