A JILTED husband has been jailed for continually ignoring an order barring him from contacting his ex-partner.

Mervyn Whitwell has been warned his sentences will be doubled each time he breaches the ban in the future.

Whitwell, 55, was jailed for eight months yesterday after he admitted breaching an anti-social behaviour order imposed for harassing his wife, Mary.

Teesside Crown Court heard that the two-year order was made in July, but that within a week Whitwell had breached it and was jailed by magistrates for two months.

He was released on August 20, but within three days he failed to adhere to the conditions again and was locked up again, this time for four months.

The day he was released from that sentence, he contacted his estranged wife again and was arrested.

Judge David Bryant told Whitwell: "I don't know if you like going to prison but you are behaving as if you do.

"Your wife is entitled not to be harassed by you, and, if sending you to prison is the only way to do it, that's where you will go - for longer and longer each time."

Two months of the previous sentence imposed on Whitwell, of Springwell Street, Easingwold, North Yorkshire, which was not served, was ordered to run alongside the latest sentence.

Defence barrister Peter Kilgour said Whitwell's problems started when his father died, the business he inherited failed and he began drinking, which led to him separating from his wife.

"Until four or five years ago, he never had any convictions," said Mr Kilgour. "What Mrs Whitwell wants is not for him to go to prison, but for him to stop pestering her."

Mr Kilgour said Whitwell was muddled by the implications of the order, and wrongly thought that once he had served his sentence he was able to contact his wife again.