A Carlisle man who resumed 12 years of harassment by making contact with his ex-partner days after being released from prison is back behind bars.
Around a decade ago, Bryan Stubbs, 65, was handed an indefinite restraining order banning him from having any contact with his former partner.
Carlisle Crown Court heard today how Stubbs had, in the intervening years, flouted that order numerous times by getting in touch with the woman, and been handed a number of immediate prison sentences.
Six days after his release from one of those custodial terms, on March 3, he committed two more crimes.
At around 7.20am, Stubbs’ former partner was starting a day shift at work when she received two images in messages from a phone number she didn’t recognise.
The first was a graphic photo of Stubbs’ private parts. A second image showed a furnished room the woman did not recognise.
Prosecutor Tim Evans said the woman had been instantly disgusted by the first picture, which she had described as perverted. A colleague was stood next to her as she opened the message, causing further embarrassment.
Stubbs answered and gave his name when a friend of the woman — aware of his tide of harassment — called the number from which the images were sent.
The woman spoke of them originally being together for only two months, before separating due to him being controlling and possessive. She had said: “He just won’t leave me alone or allow me to fully get on with my life.”
Mr Evans said of Stubbs’ repeat offending: “It has been happening for years now. She says as soon as he gets the chance to breach the order, he does. He just won’t stop until he is locked up.”
In relation to the most recent incident, Stubbs admitted breaching a restraining order by harassment, and a second charge of sending a photograph of genitals to cause alarm, distress or humiliation.
Stubbs, of no fixed address, was handed a three-year jail term, and told he would serve at least 40 per cent of that term behind bars.
The judge told him: “You must understand that if you keep on committing this offence then the sentence that the court imposes will be at this level, time and time again; and, frankly, you will spend longer and longer in prison.”
- The maximum penalty in law for breaching a restraining order is five years’ imprisonment.
