Hartlepool thug made family's life a misery and forced them to move home after campaign of terror

Ryan Foster, 26, was also served with a three-year restraining order banning him from contacting his former neighbour and his wife and young child or face a five-year jail sentence.

The judge at Teesside Crown Court said Foster, who was the carer for his elderly father, had made their lives a nightmare.

Prosecutor Paul Newcombe said the woman telephoned the police in February and March last year after seeing him with young neighbourhood children and discovering that he was a registered sex offender.

The police spoke to him and he did “moderate his demeanour”. But on August 28 in the first of 13 separate incidents when he spotted her in the street he called her “a grass” and he kicked her car and he encouraged local children to support him.

When he saw her again on the afternoon of September 2 he spoke out loud that she was “a grass” and that her car would be set on fire.

On September 13 he made foul comments in almost a football chant and he threw a beer can at her.

The same evening he was in the street shouting loud enough for her to hear that he would like to snap her neck, and on September 23 when her husband was standing next to his car Foster gesticulated that he would like to blow his head off.

Mr Newcombe said Foster told a friend who was with him that he would like to put a bullet through his head.

In the final incident on September 28, a small fire was started near to the man’s car, Foster was nearby and he told him that this was what he got for being “a grass”.

Mr Newcombe added: “There is no evidence that the defendant started the fire, but there was a great deal of suspicion.

”The harassment charges are made only to affect the man, but his wife was also upset by the defendant’s behaviour.”

The man said in a Victim Impact statement that he lived in a constant state of apprehension, had to take six weeks off work, and the family had moved home to escape, and repeated acts of vandalism had made it difficult to sell the house.

Becky Jane, defending, said he had no previous convictions for harassment but he may have a mild learning disability.

Judge Paul Preston QC told Foster, who appeared over a videolink from Durham Jail: “You embarked on a campaign of terrorising the man and his family by your persistent campaign of threatening him and his wife.

”His life was nothing short of a nightmare and the consequence for him and his family has been no less than catastrophic, they have had to move from the area to get away from you.”

Foster, of St Oswalds Street, was jailed for 18 months with the three years restraining order after admitting to harassment by putting in fear of violence.