A MAN who threatened to "batter" his female victim as she walked home from a concert has been jailed.

Joshua Haycock's face was "contorted with anger" when he sprinted after his victim along a main road in Cwmbran last September, chasing her into the toilets of a social club as she desperately called the police for help.

In doing so, he breached a restraining order previously imposed by the court as punishment for harassing the same woman three years earlier.

But the hearing at Cardiff Crown Court yesterday was told Haycock, 23, had committed five other breaches of that restraining order since then.

Matthew Roberts, prosecuting, said there was a "very long and very troubling history to this case".

He said Haycock had previously harassed his victim at her home, and had continued this behaviour while in prison in 2018, pestering her with phone calls and letters.

"This defendant will not take no as an answer," Mr Roberts said.

In a statement read to the court by Mr Roberts, Haycock's victim said her life was "turned upside down" after meeting the defendant.

Efforts to distance herself from him "did not stop him," leaving her "constantly looking over [her] shoulder".

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She now feels a "prisoner" in her own home and is afraid to open a window in case Haycock enters, Mr Roberts said, adding that she worries she will be "forever haunted" by the defendant.

Stephen Thomas, defending, said Haycock - who admitted the September 2019 offence - had a "very unstable background" and "lost his self-control" when he chanced upon his victim last September.

Judge Nicola Jones said Haycock had "no insight into the harm caused to this woman" and had a "history of disobedience to court orders".

She jailed Haycock, of Oldbridge Court, Cwmbran, for 21 months and extended the restraining order against his victim indefinitely.

The judge also said the police decision to bail Haycock following the September 2019 incident, on conditions identical to the restraining order he had breached, "makes absolutely no sense whatsoever".

"It was an absolutely ridiculous decision that exposed the complainant to the risk of serious harm," the judge added.