A MAN barred from contact with his partner of 25 years by a court order threatened her best friend and smashed her garden fence, a court heard yesterday.

Harrogate magistrates had imposed a one-year restraining order on removal man Roderick Loughray, after he had admitted harassing his former partner. It banned him from all contact with the mother of his two children.

Peter Scott, prosecuting, said Loughray, 42, had turned up in an agitated state at the home of the woman's best friend, Bernadette Cosgrove, in Lime Grove, Harrogate, in the early hours of July 27.

He had threatened to ''make her life hell and trash her car'' before kicking and punching at her garden fence, causing £100 worth of damage.

When Loughray, of Cawthorn Avenue, Harrogate, pleaded guilty to causing damage, Andrew Tinning, mitigating, said he had been drinking and could not recall the incident clearly.

But he said the offence had been part of a pattern which had followed the break-up of Laughray's relationship.

He said: ''His partner embarked on an affair, which caused a schism in the family and led to its complete breakdown, with one of the children living with him and the other with his former partner.''

Mr Tinning said Loughray, depressed and distressed, had turned to alcohol and, earlier in the year had twice been convicted of drink-driving as well as harassment and another damage offence.

After hearing Loughray was already the subject of a two-year community order, court chairman John Metcalfe conditionally discharged him for a year with costs of £150 and compensation of £100.