A JILTED lover used text messages to stalk his ex-girlfriend.

Samantha Kitchen's mobile phone was deluged with increasingly frightening threats from 23-year-old Matthew Rodbourne.

The messages from the cyber stalker threatened to e-mail intimate pictures of Samantha to her friends and family.

Rodbourne, of Jesmond, Newcastle, claimed to have copied her computer address list, containing the e-mail addresses of family and friends.

He now faces being thrown off his course at Newcastle University for accessing private material on 23-year-old Samantha's computer.

She believed he would carry out his threat after he told her he had scanned the pictures into his computer.

Newcastle magistrates heard that in one 20 minute-period he sent more than 30 text messages to her phone.

Samantha went to the police after her ex's threat to send her pictures around her family and Rodbourne was arrested.

He was charged with harassment and stalking and putting his victim in fear of violence.

Rodbourne admitted the charges and was handed a six-month conditional discharge along with a six month restraining order.

He escaped without a fine but faces being kicked out of university, where he is in his second year of a mechanical engineering course. The Newcastle University carried out a check on his computer which reveal-ed a misuse of its equipment.

A spokesman for the university said: "We will be interviewing Mr Rodbourne and the student office will be responsible for disciplinary action.