A vengeful Harrogate man has been jailed today for stalking his ex-partner, breaking into her home and smashing her work van — while she was inside.

Colby Beattie, 22, waged a relentless stalking campaign against the young woman following the breakdown of their relationship, York Crown Court heard.

In September last year, about six months after their relationship ended, Beattie broke into her home on Albert Road, Harrogate, and started smashing items in her kitchen including kettles, plates and the oven door while she was upstairs.

Prosecutor Brooke Morrison said the victim called police who arrested Beattie. He was released on bail on the proviso that he didn’t contact the victim or go to her address.

However, about two weeks later she came downstairs to find him standing in her kitchen doorway. The terrified victim screamed and called police as Beattie fled from the property.

About a week later, on October 1, the victim noticed there were two flat tyres on her Citroen Berlingo works van. She suspected that Beattie had tampered with the tyres as she had only just recently had their pressure checked.

The following day, one of the tyres came off the vehicle and she noticed that some of the bolts were missing from the wheel.

Three days later, she noticed that a screw had been inserted into one of the tyres and another had been slashed.

On October 11, she received a message from Beattie while she was out of the house. Part of the message read: “Whose are the joggers?”

It was obvious to the victim that Beattie had been inside her home because the jogging bottoms belonged to a man with whom she was in a new relationship and had been left in her bedroom.

She called police out again and they searched her home to check if Beattie was still there. He wasn’t, but an hour after they left the victim received a series of phone calls from him.

Ms Morrison said:

“Later that day she left the house again and when she returned in her work van, she saw him come round the corner on a pushbike.

“He got off the pushbike and approached her van (while she was still inside), climbed onto the van and started kicking and stomping on the windscreen until it smashed.”

He then started “kicking and pulling” at the driver’s door and tried to open it. When it failed to open, he jumped on the roof and started stamping on the vehicle again.

The petrified victim called police and was “screaming down the phone for help” from inside the van, at which point Beattie jumped off the vehicle and rode off on his bike. Ms Morrison added:

“She stayed in the van for a period of time out of fear.

“When she got out, her garden gate was open and her dogs came running out.”

The victim knew this meant that Beattie must have been inside her home again. When she went inside the property, she found that the dinner she had left out had been tipped in the kitchen sink, her bank card and passport had been cut up and “left in pieces” on the kitchen island, her TV screen and iPad had been smashed up, and a packet of prescription pills and the contents of her washing machine and dryer had been emptied onto the floor. She also discovered that £240 had gone missing from a money box.

She received yet more phone calls during and after this horrifying discovery but didn’t answer them.

‘Only one sentence can be imposed’

Beattie, of Parliament Terrace, Harrogate, was charged with burglary, stalking and damaging the victim’s property. He admitted all three matters and appeared for sentence today.

The court was told that the victim hadn’t been able to work since the incident because of the damage to her van. The repair bill was as yet unknown.

At the time of the offences, Beattie was subject to a community order imposed in June last year for threatening to damage property.

Defence barrister Benjamin Bell said that Beattie “lost (everything) when the relationship went downhill” because the victim was his “first love”.

Judge Simon Hickey told Beattie:

“For this type of behaviour against this young woman there’s only one sentence that can be imposed and that’s immediate custody.”

He said the victim must have been “terrified” by Beattie’s behaviour which was aggravated by the fact that he was on bail and under a court order at the time of the offences.

Beattie was jailed for 17 months but will only serve half of that time behind bars before being released on prison licence.

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A Harrogate woman who chased supermarket staff with a drug needle after they tried to stop her stealing alcohol has been jailed for 19 months.

Prolific shoplifter Julie Ruth Rutherford, 54, became aggressive after staff tried to stop her stealing two bottles of alcohol at the Asda store on Bower Road, York Crown Court heard.

Prosecutor Eleanor Guildford said that when staff members confronted Rutherford and asked her what was inside her bag, she hurled abuse at them and poured the contents of the bag onto the floor, which included needles.

Rutherford, who had bedevilled local supermarkets for years, picked up one of the needles and “began to sprint” after the store manager, shouting:

“I’ll give you a needle! I’ll stab you with it.”

Ms Guildford said the store manager, who was named in court, was caused a great deal of distress and anxiety. When he tried to block her path outside the store, Rutherford punched and threatened to stab him.

Ms Guildford said he had recognised Rutherford as she had stolen from the supermarket on “multiple” previous occasions.

As Rutherford tried to escape, she damaged two plant pots, added the prosecuting barrister.

She was arrested five days after the incident which occurred on the afternoon of November 24 and was captured on CCTV.

Rutherford initially denied the offences, claiming she had “no knowledge” of the incident because of her chronic alcohol addiction.

The store manager said the terrifying episode had had a profound impact on his mental health and his sleep, and he often had nightmares about the incident.

41 previous convictions

Rutherford, of Strawberry Dale, was charged with affray, criminal damage and theft. She admitted the offences which were in breach of a 12-month suspended prison sentence imposed in late October for shoplifting.

She had 41 previous convictions for 85 offences, more than half of which were thefts.

Ms Guildford said the shoplifting incident which occasioned the suspended sentence in October occurred in “very similar circumstances” to the incident at Asda four weeks later.

She said Rutherford had a “propensity to commit offences of the same nature” and use the same sort of “tools”, namely needles, to cause people fear of violence.

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Defence barrister Gabrielle Wilkes said Rutherford was “highly embarrassed” about her behaviour and had wanted to be remanded in custody for her own good.

She said Rutherford had endured a traumatic adulthood exacerbated by the death of her sister four years ago and becoming homeless.

She said that Rutherford was a drug addict and alcoholic who was now seeking help for her problems.

Time she ‘learnt a lesson’

Judge Sean Morris told Rutherford:

“I accept you had a tough life, but lots of people have tough lives and they don’t behave like you. It doesn’t give you the right to terrorise people with needles.”

Mr Morris, the Recorder of York, said Rutherford had cost the courts and authorities thousands and thousands of pounds over the years by her inveterate thievery.

He said it was time she “learnt a lesson” and gave her an 18-month jail sentence for the affray, with one month consecutive for breaching the suspended sentence.

Rutherford will serve half of the total 19-month sentence behind bars before being released on prison licence.