A MAN threatened to shoot his ex-partner, kill his father, burn down the family home and kill their dogs, a court heard.

Samuel Heys took exception to a restraining order imposed by magistrates, prohibiting him from contacting his ex-partner or their three children.

He also received a community order that day, April 18, after admitting harassment of his former partner during the previous year, starting several months after their separation.

But, while at court that day, he sent messages to his father, saying: “The worst thing they could have done was to put a restraining order on me against her”, threatening to, burn them all, “to the ground”.

Durham Crown Court heard that on his return home he was threatening to, “shoot her in the legs from a distance”.

He took a bolt action rifle and ammunition from a storage locker and tried to attach a sight he had bought.

Jolyon Perks, prosecuting, said his father told police he had never seen the weapon or ammunition before and he tried to remove them, driving away with them, with his son in pursuit.

On Heys’ return he made threats to his mother that he would kill his father, burn down the family home and kill their dogs.

He then poured petrol over his father’s Land Rover, which he threatened to ignite and, at 7.30pm, he sent a picture of his head in a noose to his ex-partner, in breach of the order made earlier.

Police found him on a tree overhanging a river at the end of the garden, also with a noose round his neck.

Mr Perks said it took a trained police negotiator three hours to talk him down, before he was arrested.

Heys, 24, of Low Green, Mickleton, in Teesdale, admitted two counts of making threats to kill, possessing a firearm and ammunition without a certificate, plus threatening to destroy or damage property and breaching the restraining order.

Philip Standfast, mitigating, said a psychiatric report confirmed Heys does not suffer any mental health condition, other than an “adjustment disorder” when faced with different situations.

Judge Christopher Prince said it is his temper which Heys needs to keep under control as he acts “like a spoiled young man” to events he dislikes, as proved by the “temper tantrum” on the day the order was passed.

Jailing him for three years, the judge put in place a further indefinite restraining disorder.