A JUDGE branded as “dreadful and disgraceful” a man’s campaign of harassment against his partner which included posting a dead rat through her letterbox.

Thomas Gill threatened to shoot the woman through the head with a crossbow, kill her children and often turned up at her home or the youngsters’ school and simply “stared or glared” without saying a word.

Gill, 23, from Eston, near Middlesbrough, made what prosecutor Jenny Haigh described as “extremely offensive comments about her father” and posted distressing things on social media.

But his sick behaviour reached a head when the victim heard a “scuffling” noise at the front door in December 2016, and found the dead and bloodied rodent on the ground.

The woman phoned her father, Stephen Donnelly, who removed it and shortly afterwards saw Gill and a friend near some shops, where there was a scuffle and he took a metal pole from his car which he waved at his daughter’s tormentor.

Donnelly, 50, of Corncroft Mews, Grangetown, ended up being arrested and charged with possessing an offensive weapon. He was given a 12-month conditional discharge after a judge said he had been “sorely provoked”.

Judge Stephen Ashurst gave Gill, of Kel Dennis Close, Eston, an 18-month suspended prison sentence after he admitted affray, criminal damage and harassment.

Defence barrister Rod Hunt said “infantile” Gill had grown up and kept out of trouble since being locked up more than a year ago when he was caught with a flick-knife and wearing a stab-vest.

John Nixon, for Donnelly, told the court: “He was at his wits end. He was concerned about his daughter. On this day, the posting of the rat was the final straw. He wanted to bring an end to it.”

Judge Ashurst told Donnelly: “You were principally looking to your daughter’s interests. She had been through a dreadful time with Thomas Gill and had it not been for the outrageous posting of a dead rat through her letterbox, you would not have behaved as you did.”