A spurned lover has been sent to prison... for holding the hand of his former sweetheart.

Michael Key, 28, claimed he wanted to be close to the woman who had been his girlfriend for seven years.

But a judge heard Key was not a hopeless romantic, but a sinister bully who had subjected Kally Lewis to a campaign of harassment.

Ms Lewis had been asleep in bed at her Hythe home when he secretly let himself into the house.

Now Key, of Kingfisher Avenue, has been jailed for 51 weeks after pleading guilty to stalking – and told to stay away from his ex for the next five years.

Prosecutor John O'Higgins told Canterbury Crown Court Ms Lewis had ended their relationship in February last year.

He said: "On December 29 last year she woke up to discover that Key was in the house and was holding her hand. She ran downstairs and asked him to leave.

"Later that morning she received a telephone call from him and asked him to apologise but he refused. Instead he told her he was going to 'go down there and tear the house apart', and she was frightened by this and called the police."

The court heard nine days earlier Ms Lewis had reported an attempt by Key to break into the house – and officers later found him hiding in a shed.

In October, she called the police when Key - who has previous convictions for two serious assaults - refused to leave the house, Mr O'Higgins added.

Kerry Waitt, defending, said Key was living from time to time in a friend's caravan and had problems with alcohol and drugs.

"you are just motivated by a selfish desire and you have no respect for law..." – recorder mark ockleton

"He now accepts that his behaviour was wholly unacceptable and moreover criminal. He is now focused and determined to move on with his life and break the pattern of his behaviour.

"He also accepts that this relationship has broken down irretrievably and because of his behaviour he is no longer welcome and friendship is perhaps asking too much."

Jailing him, the judge Recorder Mark Ockelton told Key: "This amounts to a campaign of harassment, often violent or the threats of violence, against your former partner.

"You have not only written to her, telephoned her and made threats against her, you have in the past broken into her home on a number of occasions.

"You have effectively destroyed her security. One one occasion she woke up to find you in her bedroom, on another you made a threat which anybody knowing your record of violence would be obliged to take seriously.

"You are just motivated by a selfish desire and you have no respect for law."