A man jailed for persistently breaching a restraining order by messaging a former partner has abandoned an appeal against the year-long prison sentence.

Tony James Liddle received sentences of 40 weeks and 12 weeks, to run consecutively, for stalking and for breaching both the restraining order and a suspended sentence, at Newton Aycliffe Magistrates’ Court, in February.

The suspended sentence was imposed on January 10, after a conviction before the magistrates, on December 22, last year.

Liddle, 34, of Evelyn Terrace, Stanley, appeared via video link on Thursday (May 2) at Durham Crown Court from prison in Hull, where he has been detained since the sentence passed on February 21.

The Northern Echo: Tony James Liddle abandoned Durham Crown Court appeal against 12-month prison sentence imposed in

Ashleigh Leach, responding to the appeal for the Crown, said the lifelong restraining order was put in place after a conviction for affray in March 2016, prohibiting Liddle from contacting or approaching his former partner.

Miss Leach said there were previous breaches of the order for which Liddle was convicted in 2017 and 2019, before the offence committed in December last year.

Following that conviction and both before and after being sentenced for it, Liddle sent the woman three emails and six text messages, between December 30 and February 2.

Miss Leach said these messages were not of a threatening nature, one simply referring to the day they first met in April 2014, and the second containing a link to a romantic song on YouTube.

But on February 17 the woman received a late-night call from an unknown number asking her five times if her new partner, who was named, was “available”.

In the early hours of the following morning she was contacted from an unknown number and told: “I’m going to kill you both”.

Miss Leach said Liddle was arrested on February 19 and, when interviewed the next day, he told police he had been in an “up and down” relationship with the woman for nine years, during which there had been, “a couple of scraps”.

He claimed he had sent cards, which he was permitted to, but denied sending the emails or making the calls.

But after admitting stalking the woman and breaching the restraining order, at the magistrates' court on February 21, he received the total 52-week sentence.

The Northern Echo:

Judge Jo Kidd, who was hearing the appeal sitting with two magistrates, said the new offences began little more than a week after Liddle appeared at court, on December 22.

“It was eight days after attending at the magistrates’ court and pleading guilty, and that was when he was on bail, pending the sentence that took place on January 10.

“So, he continued to commit offences of an identical nature against the same victim while pending sentence and subject of a suspended sentence order.”

Mairi Clancy, representing Liddle, said her instructions were that although initially charged with stalking and breaching the suspended sentence order, he was only convicted of breaching the restraining order, on February 21.

Judge Kidd pointed out that the wording of the offences dealt with by the magistrates on February 21 was, firstly, “breaching the restraining order”, and, secondly, “stalking”.

The judge told Miss Clancy: “In light of that information provided by the Probation Service you may want to speak again to your client.”

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Miss Clancy then took the opportunity to have a brief further conference with Liddle, after which the court reassembled.

She then said: “My instructions are to seek leave to withdraw this appeal.”

Judge Kidd, therefore, formally recorded the appeal as being withdrawn, and said: “It seems to me that was a very sensible course of action, Miss Clancy.”