A ‘thorough nuisance’ who made his ex-partner’s life a misery after he repeatedly breached court orders has been jailed.

Thomas Clayton approached the woman in the street and grabbed their child’s arm in attempt to talk to him during his campaign of harassment.

The 32-year-old also ran up to the woman’s car gesticulating with his hands and shouting obscenities at her, leaving her fearing for her safety, Teesside Crown Court heard.

Peter Sabiston, prosecuting, said Clayton has been a ‘thorough nuisance’ to the woman since they broke up, when his drinking spiralled out of control during Covid lockdown.

He said: “He shouted his child’s name before coming out of an alley on Boosbeck High Street – she raised her hand and said ‘no’.

“The defendant approached her and she told him to go away or she would call the police.

“He grabbed hold of their child’s arm, not in an aggressive way but in a way to stop the child walking away.”

The second incident occurred when the woman was sitting in her car and the defendant ran up to it with two fingers up and swore at her. 

The judge heard how the defendant was subject to a suspended sentence at the time of his latest offences for similar behaviour.

Clayton, of Wand Hill, Boosbeck, near Saltburn, east Cleveland, was found guilty of breaching a non-molestation order and a restraining order from October last year and pleaded guilty to breaching a restraining order on March 31 this year.

Eleanor Bohill, mitigating, said the reason behind her client’s behaviour was so that he could see his child but accepts that he needs to go about it in a different way.

Judge Jonathan Carroll jailed Clayton for a total of 60 weeks for his repeated breaches of court orders following the breakdown of his relationship.

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He said: “You are 32 years old, you are not a child, you have to deal with these things in an adult fashion even if you are unhappy with the outcome.

“Your behaviour had already been such that both a restraining order and non-molestation order had been put in place.

“They are not put in place automatically; they are not put in place for trivial matters following the breakdown of a relationship.”

Clayton was also made subject of a renewed restraining order for five years.