A man who hounded his ex with repeated phone calls and threats to slit her new partner’s throat has been jailed for 10 months.
Ross Duncan was “unable to accept the relationship was over” after he split from his partner.
When the woman went on a date with a new partner, Duncan confronted the pair and threatened violence towards the other man.
Duncan, 34, appeared at Inverness Sheriff Court for sentencing having previously admitted engaging in a course of behaviour that was abusive of his ex-partner.
Fiscal depute Naomi Duffy-Welsh told the court that the relationship had ended in May of 2020.
In March 2022, the woman told Duncan she was in a new relationship – her first since their split.
At the end of that month, the woman and her new partner went on a date to a restaurant in Inverness, but after they left the premises they were confronted by Duncan “shouting and swearing”.
Ex’s throat-slit threat
He told the other man that he would slit his throat and informed him that he also knew where his mother lived.
On another occasion, when the woman went for a meal with her new partner and her parents, Duncan called her sister demanding to know her whereabouts.
He made repeated “unnecessary” phone calls to his ex, sometimes calling three or four times in a day.
“If the accused did not get an answer. He would phone repeatedly and systematically until he did – sometimes 15 or 16 times in a row,” Ms Duffy-Welsh told Sheriff Gary Aitken.
She added that when this did not work, Duncan would call the woman’s sister and demand that she tell the woman to return his call immediately.
Around the end of August of the same year, the woman noticed Duncan was “driving past her address very regularly” and especially at weekends when her new partner was present. By December it had become a daily occurrence.
The court heard that Ross would attend at the woman’s home unannounced.
Ms Duffy-Welsh said: “When he was told not to attend, he would still come around, regardless.”
On one occasion he tried to gain entry to the property and on finding it locked began to shout and swear.
The woman contacted police to express her concerns about Duncan’s behaviour and he was interviewed and charged with the offence, which he later admitted in court.
Abuser ‘unable to accept’ it’s over
His solicitor David Patterson said the behaviour was “wholly unacceptable” and added: “It appears to be fuelled by him being unable to accept the relationship is over.”
Sheriff Gary Aitken told Duncan, of Lochside Court, Ullapool: “This was an appalling course of conduct directed principally towards your ex-partner, but to others as well.
“Given the attitude that you have taken, it simply confirms my view that custody is the only possible disposal in this case.”
He jailed Duncan for 10 months and imposed an 18-month non-harassment order preventing him from approaching or contacting the woman.
