A NUISANCE neighbour has been jailed for defying a court order designed to protect a young family from his behaviour.

Katy Varlow, prosecuting, said David Smiley had caused a number of problems for the family next door.

When they returned from a hospital visit for their baby on June 6, he was playing music so loudly they could hear it across the road and he banged on their wall.

He went outside and shouted towards his neighbour’s “Your life is over I can assure you. I hope your baby …….. dies.

"I wish you were all dead.”

He also made comments about the family’s ethnicity.

The council’s anti-social behaviour and environmental health officers had been involved in the case and Smiley was being evicted.

His solicitor Steve Munro told York Magistrates Court Smiley had drunk 20 to 25 cans of cider that day and couldn’t remember what he had done.

But he believed he had talked about his own death and not that of the child.

District judge Adrian Lower told Smiley the neighbour was entitled to peace and quiet at his home.

“Making reference to his daughter in the way you did is wholly unacceptable and absolutely disgraceful,” he told Smiley.

“It is no surprise to me you were to be evicted from your property. The local authority had had enough of you and decided you needed to be moved.”

Smiley, who gave his address as a road off Heslington Road, York, pleaded guilty to breaching a restraint order which banned him from contacting his neighbours in any way.

The offence breached a suspended prison sentence imposed for an earlier breach of the order, which had been made by York magistrates in October.

Smiley was jailed for 16 weeks including part of the suspended sentence.

Mr Munro said Smiley was a chronic alcoholic.

The eviction date had initially been June 5, but he had applied for a week-long extension so he could find somewhere else to live.

He suffered from depression and anxiety and was deeply upset about losing his home.

The district judge told Smiley his alcoholism and related mental health problems were self-imposed.