A GARDENER who threatened to publish an intimate video of a former partner after an explosive row has been jailed.

Samuel Davies (30) was sentenced to eight months’ imprisonment in the Magistrate’s Court this week for one count of harassment and one of causing malicious damage.

The court heard that the woman was one of five who had been victims of Davies, comprising 15 incidents in the past seven years.

Legal adviser Sam Morris, prosecuting, described how in the course of an argument with the woman, he had become aggressive and “verbally abusive”.

After the argument, he returned to the woman’s property and destroyed her iPad before threatening to share an intimate video.

Relief Magistrate David Le Cornu told him: “You had spent the evening having an argument with [the woman], which continued into the next morning.

“After you left the property in the morning, you sent a tirade of messages to the victim, all of which were seriously abusive.

“You then threw a glass at the door, which you left smashed on the floor. You left the address and you continued the abusive messages.

“Some of those messages escalated to the point of you threatening to slit her throat and saying ‘I will kill you’.”

Once at her property, he tore off the screen from the woman’s iPad and “broke it in half”.
“You sent her videos from her iPad [which were intimate] and you threatened to publish those on social media.”

The court heard that after being arrested, when being interviewed by the police, Davies commented: “I couldn’t give a monkey’s f**k,” when asked about the incident.

The Relief Magistrate added that Davies’s pre-sentencing report made for “disturbing reading” and that he did not fully understand “the impact or consequences of the emotional harm caused to his victim”. Davies was deemed at high risk of reoffending.

Advocate Estelle Burns, defending, asked the court to give him a community service order.

She stressed that Davies had not taken the video himself and that he did not actually distribute it. And, she said, her client maintained he wasn’t talking about that specific video in his threat.

She said: “He considers that his actions were not acceptable to his victim or the local community and considers that he is disgusted by his behaviour.”

The Probation Service had recommended giving him community service, she continued, adding that her client suffered from acute mental health issues”, describing the offences as “a huge outburst”.

Handing down the sentence, Mr Le Cornu said: “Both the public and indeed your victim and any potential victims need to be protected.”

As recently as his interview with the Probation Service, Davies had blamed the victim, Mr Le Cornu said.

He gave him eight months for harassment and ordered him to pay £150 to the Crown for costs. He made no separate penalty for the malicious damage and Davies was handed a restraining order for five years preventing him from contacting the victim.