AN army veteran stalked his former partner over a three month period in Bury – then broke an order to stay away from her on multiple occasions.

Minshull Street Crown Court heard on one occasion Michael Thomas got a taxi to the home of the woman and refused to pay the taxi driver before damaging his vehicle and attacking a neighbour.

The court was told the relationship of 19 years ended in late 2019. Thomas had been absent for long periods without explanation, and his partner discovered he was addicted to drugs and alcohol.

Last February he turned up at her address and became abusive to her, the court heard.

Police arrested him then but he them made numerous calls to her from a withheld number.

In April the woman was having a cigarette at her back door when Thomas came over the garden wall.

As she locked her front door to keep him out of the property he banged on the window.

Thomas, 45, struck again the next month, turning up at the home in Bury and later sent abusive messages.

Jennifer Devans-Tamakloe, prosecuting, said: “‘During the telephone calls he told her ‘I will kill you, I will destroy him, I will kill him.’”

Two days later he climbed over he neighbour’s fence and entered the kitchen, pushed the woman into the living room and took a phone out of her hand before running off with it.

Later that month Thomas took a taxi to the property at 9.30pm. He asked to be taken to her home but he fled without paying as they drove down a back street.

The driver called him back and Thomas swung a rucksack, with a bottle, at the cab, damaging a window.

He then looked through the woman’s front window and saw her and her new partner and began to bang on the front door.

A neighbour came past and Thomas attacked him before others came along and restrained him.

Ms Devans-Tamakloe said the defendant then breached an order, for him to stay away, three times.

Dan Gaskell, defending, said Thomas, a former soldier badly affected by his military stint, had been “jealous.”

The defendant, who admitted to stalking, assault and causing criminal damage, later became an IT consultant but had lost his long-term job, which placed him on a “downward spiral”.

Recorder Jeremy Lasker said the stalking was “persistent” and a jail sentence had to be imposed given the breaches of the order.

He jailed Thomas, of no fixed abode, for 14 months and imposed indefinite restraining orders concerning the woman and her new partner.