A MAN who tried to smash his way into the house where his ex-partner was has been jailed for 10 months.

As Sonny Peter Craig, 24, banged on her front door and threatened to break it down, the terrified woman fled upstairs and locked herself in her bedroom, said Andrew Horton, prosecuting.

She only came out when she could no longer hear noises below and Craig had gone.

She found the front door window smashed, the door unlocked and her house keys missing.

She later told police that during their six-month relationship “He made my life hell. He would just turn up and kick off for no reason.

“I just want him to leave me alone and never speak to me again.”

Craig, of Eighth Avenue, Tang Hall, pleaded guilty to affray and was jailed for 10 months.

He was also made subject to a restraining order for three years, under which he cannot contact the woman in any way or refer to her on social media.

Mark Partridge for Craig, said he had only gone to the house to collect items that belonged to him.

“He accepts he lost his temper and banged too loudly. He behaved in a way he would not like to replicate,” said the solicitor advocate.

Mr Horton said the couple’s relationship had broken up shortly before the incident on February 9.

At 8.45am, Craig’s banging on the door and demands to be let in woke the woman.

“Let me in, open the door,” he yelled. She replied: “No, because you’ll hurt me.”

“Open the door or I will kick it through,” he said.

She told him not to because the house belonged to her father, then fled upstairs, said the prosecutor.

Craig has 31 previous convictions for smashing his way through a kitchen door when he was locked out at a different property, and for assaulting another woman.