A MAN who sent threatening letters from jail to a woman, leaving her terrified has been banned from ever going near her again.
Steven Ready, aged 33, appeared at Plymouth Magistrates Court where he faced the charge of causing harassment without violence between August 2013 and January 2014.
The court heard Ready, whose address was given as HMP Dartmoor, was tried in his absence earlier this month after he told prison staff he was ill, but failed to seek medical advice.
As a result he was found guilty of causing harassment by sending letters and cards to his victim's home address and even contacting her by mobile phone from the prison cell.
The court heard he had called her from Exeter prison and his victim reported him for having the mobile phone in contravention of the Prison Act of 1952.
The court clerk noted how during the trial the victim had been described as "vulnerable".
She had also remained "extremely distressed in court" during the trial. The clerk explained how Ready had refused the prison authority's request to sign a "no contact notice" on several occasions.
In an impact statement read to the court, his victim explained how Ready's letters were a mixture of threats and claims that he was going "mental" while in prison.
She wrote he had "hurt me numerous times before" and noticed how in his letters his "head was going into overdrive" leaving her worrying "what he was planning".
She said she worried for herself and her pets, worried he would "come after me" when he was finally released from prison.
She described him as "aggressive and physically abusive" until she "finally had the strength to end our relationship".
She said she was "scared" what he would do to her and feared he would "send people round" to her. She also claimed he had arranged for her property to be targeted while he was in prison.
The district judge told Ready: "I've read these letters. They're terrifying. You told her 'I'm not prepared to leave you along. I'm never going to let you go'.
"They are terrifying for somebody who received them, particularly because you have some very serious criminal convictions and it would be seen in that light.
"They [the letters] go back to January this year and that has to be where it stops. If you break the [restraining] order you will be going back to Crown court [and jail] for several years."
The district judge then passed a restraining order, banning Ready from having any direct or indirect contact with the woman until any further order was made. He also sentenced him to 20 weeks imprisonment for the harassment offence.
