PUB CHEF JAILED FOR SENDING EX 769 TEXTS IN A DAY
A man texted and called a former partner no fewer than 769 times in a single day during a “torrent” of abusive and threatening phone communications, a court has heard.Despite being subject to a 10-year restraining order banning him from contacting his ex, Richard Ellis got in touch with the woman after being released from jail and began bombarding her with messages.
Sending the 32-year-old back to prison, a judge called the pub chef a “wholly inadequate and obsessive man”.
Georgia Donohue, prosecuting, told Swansea Crown Court that in October last year Ellis was given a custodial sentence and was made subject to a restraining order following a conviction for strangling his partner.
She said after being released from custody the defendant began calling and texting the woman in defiance of the court order, and she made it clear to him that she did not want to rekindle the relationship.
The prosecutor said that following the rebuff, the woman was subjected to a “torrent” of threatening and abusive texts, calls, and voice messages at the hands of the defendant.
For the latest court stories sign up to our crime newsletter The court heard that Ellis would sometimes contact the woman hundreds of times a day, and on one day in September contacted her a total of 769 times.
The defendant also created a series of Facebook profiles in various names which he used to post threats.
In the middle of the “torrent” of messages and calls, Ellis appeared in the dock of Swansea Crown Court where he was sentenced for stealing a wallet belonging to a pensioner with dementia.
He walked out of court with a suspended sentence for that matter - an offence the judge called “mean and sly” - and continued harassing his ex.
The prosecutor said the repeated phone contact was reported to police, and while the woman was sat with officers giving her statement the defendant rang her 66 times.
Ellis was subsequently arrested, and when asked in interview about the threats he had sent his former partner he replied that “she probably deserved it”.
Richard Lloyd Ellis, aged 32, of Heol Taliesin, Cwmavon, Afan Valley, had previously pleaded guilty to harassment and breaching a restraining order when he appeared in the dock for sentencing.
He has 34 previous convictions for 51 offences including robbery, burglary, sending malicious communications, criminal damage, battery, arson, and shoplifting.
In October last year he was sentenced to two years in prison for intentional strangulation after attacking his then-partner following a day out in Llanelli.
He was released on licence for that offence on May 1.
He stole the pensioner’s wallet from the Cwmavon barber's shop on May 28.
James McKenna, for Ellis, said there could be no excuses for the words used or the volume of messages sent by his client, and he said the defendant accepted his behaviour had been “utterly deplorable”.
He said Ellis had told him he had simply “lost his head”.
The barrister said the offending had happened after Ellis had taken steps to rehabilitate himself by finding stable accommodation and securing a job as a chef in a pub in Cwmavon.
Judge Paul Thomas KC said Ellis had persistently and brazenly defied a court order prohibiting him from contacting his former partner, and said in so doing had “done everything possible to make her life a misery”.
He described Ellis as a “wholly inadequate and obsessive man”.
With a discount for his guilty pleas Ellis was sentenced to 28 months in prison.
The judge activated two months of the previously imposed suspended theft sentence to run consecutively making an overall sentence of 30 months.
The defendant will serve up to half the sentence in custody before being released on licence to serve the remainder in the community.
The restraining order remains in place until October, 2034.
