Mansfield man crept into ex-partner's back garden to re-start relationship

A love-sick Mansfield man who kept creeping into his ex-partner's back garden in a bid to re-start their relationship has been fined.
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Paul Nicholson sent the woman flowers and a heart-shaped card telling her he loved her after she ended their four-month relationship in August last year, said prosecutor Donna Fawcett.

He would contact her on social media and tried to reach her via members of her family, she said.

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On March 9 she told him to stop contacting her but the next day saw him in her back garden, looking through her windows, and this ‘unnerved her’.

Nottingham Magistrates' Court.Nottingham Magistrates' Court.
Nottingham Magistrates' Court.

“She told officers ‘he has no right or need to visit her address and she was worried by the constant contact’,” Ms Fawcett said.

At lunch the next day while she was at work she checked CCTV footage remotely and was ‘frightened’ to see him in her garden again.

On March 19 her neighbours knocked on her front door to say they had seen a man lying in her back garden and trying to peer through her window.

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Nicholson, of previous good character, was interviewed by police officers on March 20.

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Lesley Pidcock, mitigating, said Nicholson was a prison officer for 25 years and ‘appears on the other side of the law for the first time’.

"There have been no breaches of bail conditions," she said. "It is clear that he took the break-up badly. I would ask you to deal with it by way of a financial penalty."

Nicholson, 52, of Sherwood Hall Road, Mansfield, admitted harassment without violence when he appeared at Nottingham Magistrates Court on Wednesday

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District judge Tim Spruce told him: "The breakdown of a relationship is a very difficult thing – it doesn't excuse your behaviour but it offers a landscape of explanation.

“You have lost your previously impeccable character. The difficulty of this kind of behaviour is the impact on the other person.

"We know that she was frightened. But there's no suggestion of any violence on your part. You have accepted responsibility and are ready to move on.”

Nicholson was fined £250 and ordered to pay £85 costs and a £34 surcharge. A 12 month restraining order was imposed.

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