Domestic abuser jailed after attack on his former partner in Milton Keynes

Lee Grant Little had been convicted of punching his former partner in the face, which caused her a black eye on May 6, but was spared jail by magistrates who gave him a 20-week suspended sentence and slapped him with a restraining order, a court heard.

In the early hours of the 30th day of the order - June 5 - the 38-year-old contacted his former partner via Facebook and told her that if she did not answer her phone he would kill her, prosecutors said.

Little had also contacted the woman's sister and made similar threats in the day before appearing at the victim's home address in Stony Stratford at around 5am, a judge was told.

Summarising the case to the defendant, who appeared by prison video link from HMP Bullingdon, Judge Catherine Tulk said the victim heard scratching noises outside her house.

"She looked out and she saw you at the front of her house. She rang the police immediately.

"She watched you. The scratching noises sounded as though there was some sort of implement you were using to try and get in. There was a kicking noise at the back of the house, as you were apparently trying to get in.

"You went back to the front of the house and caused criminal damage to the plants and the decking and criminal damage to the electrical cables. Pulling the electric cables out could have had only one objective, which would have been to plunge her house into darkness, causing her, at the very least, fear given that you had been making a consistent attempt to get into the house."

After appearing before magistrates, Little had initially denied breaching a restraining order and causing criminal damage but had later admitted both offences. He accepted having done so in breach of his suspended sentence, which Judge Tulk activated in full.

The court heard Little had 14 convictions for 23 offences, including another assault occasioning actual bodily harm which took place in a domestic setting, for which he was jailed for 30 months.

A lawyer defending Little pointed out that the circumstances in prison had become more restrictive since the coronavirus lockdown.

Judge Tulk, sitting at Aylesbury Crown Court, sentenced Little to 44 weeks imprisonment and ordered him not to contact his victim for a period of eight years, adding to do so would be to commit a separate offence for which he could be prosecuted.