A thug threatened to cut off his lover’s head in a series of threatening calls to her home in Murston in a week-long ‘campaign of harassment’.

Cocaine addict James Moore – who goes by the nickname Jimmy Peckham – said he would burn down her home with her children inside.

Maidstone Crown Court heard how the victim was so frightened that she barricaded the family in their home and would only go to the shops if protected by a police officer.

Now 43-year-old Moore, of School Lane, Iwade, has been jailed for two years and four months after admitting six charges of breaching a restraining order and assaulting his ex-lover and her daughter.

Judge David Griffith-Jones QC told him: “I am told that drugs are the root of all your problems. This was a campaign of harassment. It was disgraceful behaviour.”

Prosecutor Mark Gadden told how in May a judge granted the victim a restraining order to keep Moore away from her home and village. But in July he bombarded her with more than 50 calls including threatening to “cut her up like a fish with a 12-inch blade”, the court heard.

Mr Gadden added that when she looked out of her window she saw Moore hiding in the shadows and pushed a panic alarm but by the time police officers arrived he had fled.

On Sunday, July 7 he continued his harassment “and was still bombarding her with telephone calls”.

Moore also turned up at a cherry orchard where his ex-partner was working. He pulled her down from a ladder before kicking her repeatedly.

The prosecutor added that the victim was so frightened she took all the knives from her kitchen and hid them in her bedroom in case Moore broke in after he threatened to “chop her head off her shoulders”.

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