A CHELMSLEY WOOD man who turned up at the home of his ex-partner’s grandparents and hammered on the door with a knife in his hand has been jailed.
Jermaine Williams appeared at Warwick Crown Court after pleading guilty on the day of his trial to using threatening behaviour and having a bladed article in a public place.
The 32-year-old of Harebell Walk was jailed for 14 months and made subject to a restraining order banning him from having any contact with his ex-partner or her grandparents or going to the street where they live.
Prosecutor Timothy Sapwell said that Williams had been in a relationship with the woman for about 11 years before they split up.
She went to stay at her grandparents’ home in Chelmsley Wood where he turned up at around lunchtime on January 31 because of an issue over their children.
His ex-partner was not there, but her grandparents were at home and heard him banging loudly on the glass front door inside the porch.
When they looked they saw he was hammering on the door with a kitchen knife in his hand.
The victim’s grandfather told Williams to go away, ‘in Anglo-Saxon terms’ according to defence barrister Jonathan Veasey-Pugh, and the police were called, and Williams left.
Williams handed himself in to the police a few days later and denied having a knife, claiming he had been acting normally when he had knocked on the door, and had left when asked.
He claimed the couple had fabricated their allegation because he had cheated on their granddaughter.
Mr Sapwell added that Williams had previous convictions for 19 offences, including battery in 2004 and possessing a Stanley knife in public in 2014.
Mr Veasey-Pugh said: “This man handed himself in to the police when he found they were after him, although his prevarication does not assist him.”
Asking the judge to consider a suspended sentence, he argued that Williams was ‘not the sort of person’ the legislation indicating a minimum six-month jail term for people convicted of a second knife offence was designed to catch.
Mr Veasey-Pugh said that after they separated, Williams saw their children every fortnight, with his mother acting as the conduit – and he had gone round because of a threat from his ex-partner to relocate with the children without telling him where.
Jailing Williams, Judge Peter Cooke told him: “I have to deal with you for possessing a bladed article, a knife which was not recovered, but which was seen, a potentially lethal weapon and a distressing thing to have someone hammering on your door with.
“I quite accept you had a legitimate cause for concern. You believed your ex was on the verge of relocating with the children, thereby making it difficult for you to maintain contact with them.
“You may be forgiven for going round to the address where you thought your ex would be and banging on the door, but not taking a knife with you.
“In my judgement the factors come down in favour of the prospect that this must be an immediate sentence of custody.”
