A MAN has been jailed for terrorising his estranged wife with a 12-inch bread knife while holding her captive.

Terry Stringer, 44, went to his wife’s home near Malton after bombarding her with threatening text messages because he had received a harassment warning from police.

He burst in wearing a motorcycle helmet and began ranting about the breakdown of their relationship, York Crown Court heard.

He locked the doors and told his wife he was holding her prisoner “until I have sorted things out”, said prosecutor Glen Parsons.

Stringer dragged her out of a bedroom, forced her downstairs to the kitchen and grabbed a serrated knife.

Mr Parsons said that as the victim tried to call police, Stringer worked himself up into such a frenzy, firearms officers and dog handlers were called.

When she tried to open windows to summon help, Stringer slammed them shut and shouted: “No-one is coming in and you are going nowhere until we have things sorted out. He said, ‘I don’t care who comes through, I’ll kill them’,” said Mr Parsons.

When police arrived, Stringer was brandishing two large chef’s knives as his wife barricaded herself inside her bedroom. She used furniture to jam the door as her husband tried to force it open.

Stringer locked himself inside an attic bedroom after police kicked in the front door and rushed inside. They found the victim cowering in a corner in her bedroom. Stringer finallygave himself up inside the attic room, where he had splattered the bed with paint and left stab marks on a bedside cabinet.

After a two-hour stand-off with police, he was arrested and charged with affray, false imprisonment, damaging property and harassment following the incident in Settrington in the early hours of May 15. He was remanded in custody and appeared for sentence via video link.

Stringer, of Smiddy Hill, Pickering, sat with his head bowed as Mr Parsons told how the defendant already had a caution to his name for a previous attack on his wife in September last year. He also had a previous conviction for assaulting a former partner.

Stringer’s wife, a mother-of-four who has now filed for divorce, said the incident had had a devastating impact on her life and she no longer felt safe in her home.

Defence barrister Chris Dunne said Stringer was now “entirely remorseful” for putting his wife through the ordeal, but that he had threatened to kill no-one but himself.

Jailing Stringer for two years, Recorder Andrew Stubbs QC told him: “You must know the dreadful fear you put your wife in.” He made a restraining order, to run indefinitely, banning Stringer from contacting or approaching his wife, entering Settrington or going to an address in Pickering.