A jilted lover has been jailed after stalking his ex in Aberdeen and threatening to hurt her cats if she didn’t get back together with him.
Arturs Lontons, 27, bombarded the woman with phone calls, voicemails and texts, threatening to turn up and cause a scene at her work, to smash up her flat and even to hurt her pet cats.
After a previous court appearance in connection with the matter, he went straight to her work and, when she wasn’t there, refused to leave without being given her phone number.
Fiscal depute Lynzi Souter told Aberdeen Sheriff Court: “The complainer and the accused are described as ex partners.
“At 12.15am on February 28 the complainer was at home and she started to receive phone calls from a mobile number.
“She answered and recognised the voice to be that of the accused and the accused was trying to convince her to rekindle the relationship.
“She refused and the accused then threatens to come to her workplace and cause a scene.
“He also made further threats that he would trash her flat and hurt her cats and attend at the complainer’s mother’s workplace.”
Mrs Souter said Lontons called the woman “in excess of 20 times during the space of approximately an hour”.
She said: “The accused then began to send a number of text messages from the same mobile number.
“The messages were in similar vain to what had been stated in the telephone call about attending at her workplace, her property, her mum and her cats.
“The last message was received about 12.40am.”
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Police were called and Lontons was arrested and appeared in court on March 2.
He admitted behaving in a threatening or abusive manner and breaching a non-harassment order and was released on bail while sentence was deferred.
But after leaving court he attended at his ex’s workplace and asked to see her.
Mrs Souter said: “When he was informed that the complainer was not there the accused demanded to be given her phone number and he was refusing to leave without it.
“Because he was refusing to leave without the number one of the employees there provided him with a false number and the accused subsequently left.”
On April 16 the woman received a call from a withheld number. She did not answer it but she recognised Lontons’ voice from a voicemail that was left.
Mrs Souter said: “Again he was indicating he wished to rekindle the relationship.”
She then received calls from withheld numbers “every couple of days” until June 12, a total of 30 voicemails being left, all of a similar nature talking about rekindling the relationship.
The woman again contacted police and reported the matter.
Lontons admitted a charge of stalking over the phone calls between April 16 and June 12, and two charges of breaching a non-harassment order over the calls between that period and also the incident on March 2.
Defence agent Alex Burn said: “The position is he formed a relationship with this lady and it’s not a particularly good relationship. It’s fairly volatile.”
He added his client had had trouble accepting that the relationship was over, but he now accepted it had come to an end.
Sheriff Graeme Napier told Lontons, whose address was given in court papers as Flatford Close, Corby: “Given your record, given the repeated nature of this offending and given what’s said in the social work report that you are intending to continue to pursue this relationship, I see no alternative but to impose a custodial sentence.”
Dealing with all matters together, including the February 28 incident, he ordered Lontons to be jailed for seven months and imposed a five-year non-harassment order.