In court
Man obsessed with girlfriend jailed for breaking restraining order

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AN OBSESSED man from Rugby who had no fewer than eight convictions for breaching a restraining order banning him from contacting his ex-girlfriend called her again after being released from jail.

As a result Neil Barnhill is back behind bars yet again - which a judge was told is what he hoped would happen when he made the call.

Barnhill, 41, of not fixed address but formerly of Oberon Close, was jailed for 12 months at Warwick Crown Court after he admitted breaching a restraining order.

He had been in a relationship with Verity Clarke which had ended as long ago as March 2005.

The original restraining order against him was made in October that year after Barnhill, who could not accept their relationship was over, had been convicted of harassing her.

But just six days after the order was made he began making abusive calls to her, as a result of which he was jailed for 12 months in November 2005.

Within days of being freed Barnhill continued to make threatening calls to Miss Clarke, and in April 2006 he was jailed for 21 months, and was freed on licence in January 2008.

Just two days later he made a silent call to her unlisted phone number, but the police traced the call to him, and in March that year he was given a chance by a judge who gave him a six-month suspended sentence.

But hopes Barnhill was finally seeing sense proved unfounded – and in June 2008 he was jailed for a total of two-and-a-half years for offences including breaching the restraining order yet again.

Following his release from that sentence his breaches of the restraining order continued.

In August last year magistrates gave him a community order for yet another breach of the restraining order – and when he breached it again he was jailed in October for 16 weeks.

But on December 22 he made a call to her number and left a message in which he apologised for making the call and said he did not want to cause her to be in fear.

Barnhill said he was making the call to be in breach of the order because he wanted to go back to prison, and Miss Clarke reported it to the police when she heard it the next day.

Barnhill was arrested when he handed himself in to the police a week later and made a full confession, saying he was homeless and looking for a way to get back into custody.

Robert Hodgkinson, defending, said: “His story is a very sorry and sad one, no doubt brought upon himself by his very heavy drinking. The result is that today he is homeless, partnerless and jobless.”