Sick Leeds ex bombarded woman with messages, threatening to shoot her and telling her he 'hopes she has AIDS'

Leeds Crown Court heard that Christopher Scales spent days sending a tirade of abuse over texts and calls to mother of his three children.

The couple had been together 12 years but separated in June 2022. Scales was jailed in the for nine weeks for sending malicious communications to her, and was given a five-year restraining order to keep away from her.

But on May 13 this year he began text messaging the woman and calling, prosecutor Michael Smith said.

He sent 50 messages and called her 30 times over the next few days, repeatedly warning her about not having another man in the house. He called her names and made the vile comment about having AIDS.

He then said he would shoot her “right between the eyes”. He added: “I promise you someday you will be gone. I will seriously kill you and him. I’m grabbing this gun and and both of you are dead. There’s going to be bloodshed.

"Prison can keep me away for a while, but not for long. Watch what happens when I get out, I will be back in for murder.”

In a victim impact statement, the woman said she believed 35-year-old Scales had the potential to harm or kill her.

During his police interview, Scales gave no comments. He later admitted a charge of stalking with causing a fear of violence, and breach of his restraining order. He appeared in court via video link from HMP Doncaster, where he was being held on remand.

Mitigating, Zarreen Alam-Cheetham said Scales, of Kentmere Crescent, Seacroft, suffered from PTSD after being attacked in 2013, and was diagnosed with depression in 2017 but had stopped taking his medication.

She said: “He accepts he should not have sent them. He tell me he regrets it. In my submission these messages were impulsive and what he described as a ‘moment of madness’. He tells me he was never going to act on these messages.”

Judge Mushtaq Khokhar jailed him for 30 months and said: “It’s not surprising she went to the police. She feels you were capable of carrying out your threats. This kind of conduct will not be tolerated.”