A CAERPHILLY man has been jailed for harassment after breaching a restraining order by contacting his ex-wife and calling her a “rat” and a “slag”.

Andre Soroko, 36, was subject of a restraining order from his ex-wife following an assault occasioning actual bodily harm in December 2020, where he hit her on the knee with a baseball bat.

Soroko was banned from contacting the complainant, except via email to make arrangements for their two children.

On the evening of May 29, Soroko sent an email saying “Heard you was at The Lindsay last night with your boyfriend” to his ex-wife, prosecutor Christopher Evans told Cardiff Crown Court.

The conversation between the two continued, and Soroko said: “Funny how I just had a missed call off the rat” and that his ex-wife was “a slag like everyone said you are”.

Mr Evans said that on June 1, the complainant received a series of calls from a withheld number. She identified Soroko as making the calls, and told him to stop.

On June 4, the complainant was at a takeaway with her partner and two children. While her partner and daughter were inside the takeaway, she waited in the car with her six-year-old son.

Soroko “appeared”, Mr Evans said, opened the car door, and “words were exchanged”.

The prosecution alleged that Soroko shouted at his ex-wife “You are a slag and a rat” in front of their young child - claims he denied.

After an altercation with her partner, the police were called and Soroko was arrested.

The complainant told officers “the restraining order is not worth the paper it’s written on,” Mr Evans told the court.

Soroko has one previous conviction – the assault occasioning ABH – for which he was sentenced to six months imprisonment, suspended for two years.

“As far as he’s concerned, life took a turn for the worse with the death of his father in 2019 and the breakdown of his relationship in 2020,” said Kevin Seal, in mitigation.

“He is the first to acknowledge how stupid he has been.”

Mr Seal said that given the pair would be in contact two or three times a week to make childcare arrangements, and given their seven-year relationship history, it was “to their credit” that there had only been three breaches in the first seven months of the five-year restraining order.

However he said the conversations had been “two-way”.

“She also has taken part in breaches of the order,” he said.

“These are two individuals in their 30s who are acting well below their natural real ages as far as the children are concerned.”

Soroko, of Ruth Street in Bargoed, had pleaded guilty to a charge of harassment by breaching a restraining order, and was sentenced to 24 weeks in prison and ordered to pay a £156 victim surcharge.

For breaching the suspended sentence, Recorder Carl Harrison handed him a 12-week sentence, running consecutively.