A VAN driver has been made subject of an exclusion order to prevent him going to his former partner’s home.

It prohibits Ashley McGarrigle, 27, from entering an area surrounding South Hetton, where his ex-partner lives, for the next year.

He admitted charges of putting a person in fear of violence by harassment and breaching a restraining order, four times within ten days in February, since when he has been on remand in Durham Prison.

Jonathan Walker, prosecuting, told Durham Crown Court, sitting in Newcastle, the couple were in, “a toxic relationship”, between 2015 and 2018, in the latter parts of which he assaulted her twice, leading to the imposition of the restraining order, in April 2019.

Jane Waugh, mitigating, said on his release he plans to return to work with a truck and van company, while living at a friend’s address in Hartlepool.

Judge James Adkin said after almost four-months in custody, “a more constructive way to deal with him”, would be to make him subject of an electronically-monitored exclusion order, which would send an alert if he strayed into the forbidden area.

As part of a two-year community order he must attend 30 probation-led activity days and observe a five-month, 8pm to 6am electronically-monitored home curfew, while the restraining order was extended by five years.