A spurned lover who waged a “sinister” campaign of harassment against his ex-partner had to be restrained in the dock after he refused to be taken to the cells.

British national John Keenan became angry when a judge flatly refused his request for deportation so he could serve his jail sentence in a foreign prison.

A female dock officer was unable to release his grip on the dock rail and a police officer and a security officer intervened. The 37-year-old construction worker was handcuffed before being taken forcibly to the cells.

Keenan, of Freshwater Road, Chatham, admitted harassment and having a blade when he turned up in the victim’s garden at night.

Jailing Keenan for 14 months and making a restraining order for eight years, Judge Julian Smith said: “Your perspective causes me concern. These are worrying offences. It is not fate, it is harassment. All these elements and that combination is sinister.”

Keenan, who represented himself, asked: “Can I be put in for deportation? Can I move countries today, because the justice in this country is terrible.

“It is a few love letters. It is diabolical. I am not going down.”

Maidstone Crown Court heard how, after their year-long relationship ended last year, Keenan broke a window in the victim’s Gillingham home.

"Can I be put in for deportation? Can I move countries today, because the justice in this country is terrible" - John Keenan

Prosecutor Keith Yardy said Keenan afterwards called her up to 30 times a day, sent multiple text messages and emails and waited outside her house. Keenan engineered situations to talk to her at a club and a job centre.

He was arrested in February and bailed with a condition not to contact the woman. But straight afterwards he sent a letter to her mother saying how much he loved her daughter.

Four more letters were sent to the victim’s home, some hand-delivered. He sent flowers and approached her as she got off a bus.

She then found him sitting in her back garden with a letter for her in a sports bag. Police arrested him and seized a Stanley knife from the bag.

Keenan had previously been jailed for the domestic abuse of another partner.

The victim said in a statement: “These issues with John have made me scared to leave the house. Every corner I go round I am scared he will be waiting. I am completely anxious.

“When he comes to my house I am terrified. I don’t know what he is capable of. I am concerned something bad will happen to me.

“His behaviour is not that of a normal man. I just want him to stop contacting my family and let me get on with my life.”

Representing himself because of his distrust of solicitors, Keenan insisted he was not a danger to anybody.

“I held my hands up,” he said. “It is no benefit for me to be in prison.

“I know I have broken the law. I wish no harm and I never will be any harm to any human being.

“I am no threat and I never will be.”