Jealous bully jailed for ‘destroying’ former girlfriend’s life
A CONTROLLING and coercive boyfriend has been jailed for terrorising his girlfriend, including bombarding her with 400 texts in five minutes.
Lee Rowe, 35, also sent chilling messages threatening to burn down a house belonging to a friend of the victim “with the kids in it”. Birmingham Crown Court was told that ‘bullying’ Rowe had eight previous convictions for harassment and had tried to control previous girlfriends.
The former bouncer was jailed in August 2018 for 18 months after sending abusive messages to a former partner in Coventry, including a threat to snatch her pet dog and skin it. Rowe, of Redstone Farm Road,
Hall Green, has now been sentenced to two years and four months after being convicted of controlling and coercive behaviour, as well as threatening to destroy property.
The court heard he had moved down to Portsmouth to live with his latest victim in October 2019. They had been together at her home on January 30 this year when they argued and he stopped her leaving the property by grabbing her shoulders. When she managed to flee, he began to bombard her with texts accusing her of being unfaithful. He also sent her photos showing cuts he had made to his body and pictures of his mouth with a number of tablets. Olivia Appleby, prosecuting, said the victim did return to her home to discover that the defendant had used a knife to cause extensive damage to a kitchen worktop. She left again but Rowe “started his campaign of messaging again”.
Miss Appleby said the texts became more sinister and the woman received a video of what appeared to be dripping blood on a floor. She said Rowe’s previous harassment convictions were between 2013 and 2018 and said “it is clear he would stop at nothing to get her attention”.
The latest victim said that her life had been “destroyed” by the defendant and she never wanted to see him again. Passing sentence Judge Dean Kershaw told Rowe: “You are a paranoid man. You believed that when she was not with you she was seeing other people. Your clear bullying behaviour is about your paranoia and insecurity in the relationship.
“It is clear from reading all the papers you wanted to control her. You feared she may meet someone else. These messages were relentless. It was all intended to get her to come home. You are a big man, big in stature but you are low in decency. Your behaviour was aimed at causing her the maximum distress that you could.”
Bernard Shaw, defending, said Rowe had suffered mental health problems following some traumatic events in his life in 2004.