A Colchester man who repeatedly breached a court order banning him from contacting a woman he’d been in a relationship with has been jailed for 38 months.

Alexundru Ureche, 29, was made the subject of a restraining order banning him from contacting Amanda Watson or going to her home in Vega Close, Colchester, by magistrates in November 2017, Ipswich Crown Court heard.

Since then he had breached the order six times by phoning Miss Watson or going to her home, said Timothy Kiely, prosecuting.

Sentencing Ureche, of Artillery Street, Colchester, Judge Martyn Levett said; "You have no intention of complying with court orders and you pose a significant risk of breaching them in the future."

Ureche pleaded guilty on Monday (September 9) at Ipswich Crown Court to four offences of breaching a restraining order made by Essex magistrates on November 11, 2017, by going to Vega Close, Colchester, on September 6 and 16 and October 15, 2018, and by contacting Amanda Watson on September 7, 2018.

He also admitted making a threat to kill Stuart Gill on September 7, 2018, and having a knife in Wimpole Road, Colchester, on October 15 2018.

The court heard that on September 6 last year Ureche lost his temper after being asked to leave Miss Watson's home and the police were called.

The next day he repeatedly called Miss Watson on her mobile phone and had threatened to kill her son Stuart Gill.

On September 16, he went to Miss Watson's home with some friends and when Mr Gill saw them in the back garden he was so concerned he ran upstairs and armed himself with a hammer.

On October 15, the police were called after another incident at Miss Watson's home involving Ureche and when they arrested him he was found in possession of a knife.

In a victim impact statement read to the court, Mr Gill said he had moved from Colchester to Scotland because of Ureche and wanted a restraining order to stop him contacting him if he ever came back to Colchester.

Folishade Abiodun, for Ureche, said her client had been aware of the restraining order but thought Miss Watson had applied to have it lifted.

She accepted Ureche hadn't checked himself to see if it had been lifted.