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.
Read more:
- Police warn of spate of pushy cold callers in Harrogate
- Police appeal following indecent exposure in Ripon
