Violent stalker sobs as judge delivers sentence
THUG JAILED OVER ABUSE OF HIS EX
A STALKER who hurled a fence pole through the window of his ex-partner’s home, while she was inside getting their baby ready to go out with him, sank into loud sobs as he listened to a judge say that his abusive behaviour had “crushed her”.
Michael Rochford, 30, arrived at his ex’s home to collect his daughter for a pre-arranged outing in 2020.
Teesside Crown Court has heard that the mother of his child asked him to wait outside but that he went in anyway and began verbally abusing her.
Prosecutor James Yearsley told the court that Rochford then walked back outside and “a fence post came through the living room window whilst his ex was in there getting the baby ready”.
Mr Yearsley said that the couple had split up in April of 2019, but that Rochford had turned up at his former partner’s workplace and home, and sent unwanted messages.
Mr Yearsley went on to say that Rochford had also harassed his partner while they were together for seven years. The prosecutor said Rochford:
● Followed his partner into the bathroom and threatened to drown her in 2015.
● Told her to, “shut up or I’ll take your face off ya” in 2016, while she was pregnant and lying on the sofa.
● Dragged her across the living room by her hair during an argument in front of her sister.
Rochford’s victim called the police after she saw him waiting outside her home in a Range Rover.
Mr Yearsley said that when Rochford was arrested on November 26 of last year, he told police that his ex-partner had lied to them about him, and that she had “stopped him seeing their daughter for over a year”. The barrister said that Rochford’s ex had been badly affected by his stalking and abuse, that she has constant nightmares about what had happened and she suffers from depression and PTSD.
The victim said: “The violence he subjected me to will stay with me forever.”
Rochford, of Topcliffe Street in Hartlepool, pleaded guilty to stalking between January 2019 and November 2020; and harassment from January 2012 to April 2019. The court heard that he has seven previous convictions for 25 offences, which include previous domestic violence against other ex-partners.
This year, Rochford has served six weeks in prison for assaulting an emergency worker; 10 weeks for threatening and abusive behaviour and 16 weeks for battery – after he strangled his new girlfriend.
Michael Cahill, defending, said that his client had been “trying to prove himself in prison” and was wearing an orange T-shirt to show he had been handed a prison cleaner position.
“Whilst the facts are very unpleasant,” Mr Cahill continued, “the harassment wasn’t a daily occurrence. It happened on a number of occasions.”
Rochford collapsed in tears, as he listened to the court hearing on video link from Durham prison.
Judge Christopher Smith told him: “Early on in the relationship, your partner told you she had some mental health problems.
“Whilst you should have been a caring partner, you sought to use that to your advantage, threatening serious violence.
“This pattern of behaviour over a seven-year period had a significant affect on her. Small pieces of crushing behaviour eventually crush a victim.”
The judge jailed Rochford for three years and nine months.
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This pattern of behaviour over a seven-year period had a significant affect on her
JUDGE CHRISTOPHER
SMITH