A Woodbridge man who stood in his former partner’s bedroom watching her sleep after breaking into her home has been jailed for 38 months.

Jimmy Barwick forced his way into the property through the back door and when the woman woke up and told him to leave he had picked up a kitchen knife and threatened to kill himself, Ipswich Crown Court heard.

He left the house and later sent his former partner a picture of her kitchen knife and repeated his threat to harm himself,

In a victim impact statement read to the court, the woman said she had felt like a “puppet on a string” during her relationship with 24-year-old Barwick and since the end of the relationship she had felt as though the string had been cut.

Barwick, of Anni Healey Close, Woodbridge, admitted burglary and criminal damage to his former partner’s earphones In October 2020, and another burglary at a flat in Woodbridge.

In addition to being jailed, Barwick was banned from contacting his former partner.