A MAN who made his former-girlfriend's life a living hell during a six-month campaign of terror walked free from court yesterday.

Brad Green was told by a judge that he had come perilously close to being locked up for his appalling treatment of Danielle Shellard.

Green was given a 12-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, and a two-year restraining order banning him from bothering Miss Shellard.

The judge, Recorder Simon Myerson, told the 23-year-old: "She is entitled to be left alone - and that's what you are to do."

He added: "I would be very surprised that if you did this again, you would not go to prison for 18 months - that's a minimum."

Teesside Crown Court heard how an injunction was taken out against Green last August after his relationship with Miss Shellard ended.

Andrea Pitt, prosecuting, said Green breached the order between November 19 and 22 when he repeatedly harassed his 19-year-old former partner.

On one occasion, he went to her home to see their two-year-old daughter, but became aggressive after reading text messages on Miss Shellard's mobile phone.

Miss Pitt said Green hurled abuse at her and smashed the phone as he yelled: "You won't be able to text your little boyfriends now."

Green later approached Miss Shellard and her friend in a Middlesbrough pub, grabbed her by the face and threw a drink over her.

After putting his forehead on Miss Shellard's, he said: "I'm going to stamp on your head . . . I'm going to bury you alive."

The following day, Green broke into her home and searched it while Miss Shellard and her sister cowered under a bed, said Miss Pitt.

David Lamb, mitigating, accepted that Green deserved to go to prison for his crimes, and he told the court: "He knows that his behaviour was appalling."

Green, of Thetford Avenue, Middlesbrough, admitted putting a person in fear of violence by harassment, and was also ordered to undergo 12 months of Probation Service supervision.

Mr Recorder Myerson told him: "The message has to go out that you cannot bully an ex-partner just because you don't like what she is doing when she has moved on from you.

"You petrified her and put your interests ahead of your own child because how on earth any mother of any age is supposed to cope, both with the demands of a toddler and the sort of behaviour you subjected her to, is beyond me."