A MAN threatened to “cut up” his ex-partner’s new lover after turning up at his home at 4.30am with a bread knife.

Carl Short, 38, was already the subject of a restraining order for assaulting his former girlfriend, a court heard.

Short screamed at the new couple: “I’m coming through the door and I’m going to cut you up. You’re a dead man.”

After being arrested at the scene of the early-morning disturbance in east Cleveland, he told police: “You’d better remand me. I’m going to do exactly the same thing when I get out.”

The 38-year-old’s lawyer said he had been drinking after his ex contacted him, and sent a series of text messages to her.

Rachel Dyson, mitigating, told Teesside Crown Court he had suffered damage to his car, and went around to slash the tyres in revenge.

She said Short was involved in a crash in 2010 which left him “grieving” for the active and work life he had.

After being attacked and robbed two years later, he was affected even more, and took last year’s relationship breakdown badly.

But, said Miss Dyson, he “built himself up to some extent” and used his qualifications to get a job as an industrial cleaner.

Short, of Northfleet Avenue, Middlesbrough, admitted affray, breaching a restraining order and having a blade.

He was given a 12-month prison sentence, suspended for 18 months with rehabilitation sessions by Judge Howard Crowson on Friday.

The judge told him: “It was a frightening incident for the people in the house.”