A WOMAN was forced to lock herself in a bathroom in a bid to get away from her former partner after she found him standing inside her home asking her: “Hi, have you missed me?”
Nicholas Fairweather had previously taken hold of a kitchen knife and held it against his arm while his ex-partner was making sandwiches at her home on the Lennoxlove Estate, near Haddington.
Edinburgh Sheriff Court was told that the incident placed the woman in a state of fear and alarm for her own safety and took place as the couple’s relationship fell apart in July.
The court was also told of a second incident four days later when Fairweather, 41, breached a court order banning him from contacting the woman and going near her home.
She had unlocked the back door of her home to let her dog out before later finding Fairweather had turned up and allowed himself entry.
The woman then found her former partner standing in a doorway inside her home and he was said to have asked her: “Hi, have you missed me?”
Fairweather, of Haddington’s Market Street, then took a shower before the woman was forced to lock herself in the bathroom and managed to call the police.
'Still afraid'
During Monday’s hearing, the fiscal depute told the court that the woman was “still afraid of him” and that she was in favour of a non-harassment order being imposed.
Sheriff Robert Fife said that he was deferring sentence to February next year for Fairweather to be of good behaviour and for him to continue engaging with his GP and social worker.
The sheriff also agreed to impose an order banning Fairweather from approaching or contacting his former partner for the next 24 months.
Fairweather pleaded guilty to behaving in a threatening or abusive manner towards the woman by repeatedly shouting and swearing at her, taking possession of a knife and holding it against his arm, and placing the woman in a stare of fear and alarm at Lennoxlove Estate on July 11 this year.
He also admitted to failing to comply with a court order banning him from contacting the woman by arriving at her home on July 15.
Fairweather also had not guilty pleas to two allegations of possessing cannabis accepted by the Crown.
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