A thug who threatened his ex-partner with a sledgehammer after she ended their relationship has been jailed.

Stephen Dwyer, from Accrington, stalked her for several days by turning up uninvited at her family home, bombarding her with texts and phone calls and following her around pubs in the town centre, a court heard.

The 36-year-old plumber was ejected by bar door staff on one occasion before turning up at her Oswaldtwistle home several hours later and smashing his way in using a sledgehammer.

The victim woke up to find her ‘drug-fuelled’ ex standing at the bottom of her bed swinging the hammer over his head and saying ‘You’re lucky I haven’t killed you’.

Dwyer, of Wordsworth Road, pleaded guilty at Burnley Crown Court to putting a person in fear of violence through harassment. He was jailed for 10 months and given a four-year restraining order.

Stephen Parker, prosecuting, told the court that the couple had been in a relationship for around 12 months but his temper had become ‘erratic’ and his ‘temper would turn at the click of a finger’.

The court heard that on one occasion Dwyer ‘pinned’ the victim up against the wall and ‘threw her pet cat across the room’.

Mr Parker said the mother-of-three ended the relationship after discovering he had been using cocaine.

In the week up to the incident on November 20 last year Dwyer ‘constantly texted her and rang her’, parked outside her house looking in the window, drove up and down her street and ‘made her feel like a prisoner in her own home’, the court heard.

Mr Parker said on November 19 the victim went to several pubs in Accrington and Dwyer kept following her around and ‘whispering vulgarities in her ear’.

The court heard how doormen at iBar ended up removing Dwyer from the premises and at 9.30am the next morning he broke into her home armed with a sledgehammer.

He told the victim: ‘You’re lucky I haven’t killed you. Why have you been spreading rumours about me?’

Mr Parker said Dwyer was ‘clearly under the influence of something’ and the victim ‘thought it was probably cocaine given her past experience with him’.

The court was told that Dwyer used the hammer to break into the property and the back door was ‘smashed to bits’.

Judge Beverley Lunt said Dwyer’s threats with the sledgehammer in her bedroom were ‘absolutely terrifying’ for the victim.

The court was told how Dwyer, who has been a plumber for 20 years, had also previously been convicted for battery and sending malicious communications in relation to a previous partner.

'It has to be clearly understood that behaviour like this cannot and will not be tolerated' - Judge

Judge Lunt said Dwyer didn’t harm his latest victim physically but she is still ‘psychologically’ suffering the effects of his actions.

Sentencing, she said: “This represents a course of conduct, not just one incident but an escalating and very frightening course of conduct towards this lady.

“When she ended the relationship you didn’t take it well at all.

“It’s worrying to me that it has also occurred in a previous relationship, though I accept you are now reconciled with that lady. You have had restraining orders and community orders before and yet here you are before me after behaving in a dreadful way towards this lady.

“You demolished the back door with a sledgehammer. It was premeditated, you armed yourself, you went round there and let yourself into her bedroom and stood there wielding a large sledgehammer.

“That’s absolutely terrifying. You may not have caused her physical injury but psychologically, of course, you damaged her and she is still suffering the effects.

“I can’t see an alternative to custody with this level of behaviour. It has to be clearly understood that behaviour like this cannot and will not be tolerated.”

In a victim impact statement read out at court, she said she is ‘still in shock’ and has not slept since the incident. She said she keeps asking herself ‘what if?’.

Neil Howard, defending, said Dwyer is ‘very remorseful and regretful’ and ‘nothing justified his behaviour’.

He said: “He can clearly appreciate that the incident must have been terrifying for the victim. “He is shocked by his own behaviour and has thought about what happened every day since. He clearly wasn’t thinking straight.

"It was the biggest mistake of his life. The strongest mitigation is his early guilty plea. Thankfully no-one was injured.

"He has a tremendous amount to lose. His mother has been appalled and shocked by the ramifications of the incident.”