A FAIRGROUND worker who threatened to kill his girlfriend after their affair broke up was sent to prison yesterday.

Prosecutor Peter Pearson told Harrogate magistrates how Carol Shaw was left frightened and crying by the calls made to her mobile phone by Brian Morgan.

Morgan, 32, had told her there was a contract out on her life.

In another call, Morgan, who travelled Yorkshire with a fun fair, told Ms Shaw: "You are going to have your head ripped off. Go anywhere near Hull Fair and I'll blow your kneecaps off."

Mr Pearson said Morgan was working at a fair in Pateley Bridge when he made the calls. They scared Ms Shaw because he had shown her a gun when she visited him in his fairground caravan.

"She believed he might use it," said Mr Pearson. "She genuinely believed he was going to kill her."

Police had searched the caravan after arresting Morgan and found what appeared to be a semi-automatic handgun in a cupboard, although it turned out to be a toy.

Morgan pleaded guilty to making threats to kill Ms Shaw and was jailed for ten weeks.

In mitigation, Jonathan Bennett said the couple had met at a fair in Halifax in August but by September 17 their relationship appeared to be over.

Ms Shaw had been given details of Morgan's past and had upset him by taunts that he was a "child murderer".

Mr Bennett said in 1994 Morgan's baby had died and both he and the mother had been arrested.

Morgan was charged with murder and spent some weeks in custody before the Crown dropped the case because of lack of evidence.