Mansfield "motor-mouth" warned he faces jail if he continues to harass ex-pals

John Edgar had been friends with the couple, but they told him they didn't want him around anymore after discovering he was using drugs, said prosecutor Steven Taylor.

"It seems to have caused a lot of bad feeling," he said, describing how the defendant would shout abuse as he drove past them in his car.

Edgar was convicted of harassment in December 2018 when he received a community order and a restraining order, but within three months he "let his mouth run away with him yet again."

On February 25, 2019, he shouted at the woman: "You're still going to have it. It's my fault you didn't get that job at Christmas," before calling her names.

And two days later, Edgar gunned his car engine as they passed his home and shouted at her partner: "Me and you in that field now."

In a statement, his female victim, who has to pass Edgar's home to take her children to school, said she wanted to do so "without putting up with this sort of behaviour."

David Watts, mitigating, said: "His guilty plea was entered very late. It is over two years since there were any problems.

"He has indicated that he will comply with any new order."

Edgar is a full-time carer for his daughter and ex-partner, he added.

Recorder Paul Mann QC said: "It seems to me that if this had all resulted in a guilty plea back in 2019 this couple would have been free of any further harassment and there would have been complete closure to the case."

He said Edgar's victims "would have been left with a continuing sense of anxiety because there was no formal acknowledgement he had done wrong."

Edgar, 52, of Gladstone Street, Mansfield, admitted three counts of breaching the order, on May 25, 2021, when he appeared at Nottingham Crown Court.

He was sentenced to 18 weeks in prison, suspended for 18 months, and made subject to a fresh restraining order for 18 months.

"Should you become motor-mouth yet again you know where you will go," the judge told him.

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