Stalker smeared excrement on victim's Leeds city centre flat mail box Leeds Crown Court told

The woman's post was stopped because of Michael McFarlane's behaviour while stalking her over a six month period, Leeds Crown Court heard.

McFarlane, 36, who threatened to burn the woman's home down, also physically attacked her son.

The court heard McFarlane found out where the woman worked and hung around outside her workplace and followed her.

McFarlane threw eggs at her flat's windows and smashed a window on one occasion.

He emptied rubbish bins outside her home and tried to get her tenancy ended.

The court heard McFarlane rang the woman's doorbell at all hours of the day and night and verbally abused her.

McFarlane also told police that the woman had committed a racially aggravated offence against him.

Philip Standfast, prosecuting, said the woman had to make considerable changes to her lifestyle to avoid contact with McFarlane.

McFarlane punched and kicked the woman's son during an attack in Leeds city centre on October 12 2018.

McFarlane, of Elford Place, Harehills, denied stalking the woman between July 31 2018 and January 1 2019.

He also denied perverting justice in connection with lying to police, falsely claiming the woman had committed a racially aggravated offence against him.

And he denied assault causing harm to the woman's son.

A Leeds Crown Court jury convicted McFarlane of all three offences after a trial.

He has 11 previous convictions, which include one offence of damage in relation to defecating in a lift at the flats.

Kitty Colley, mitigating, said a number of deaths in McFarlane's family had a significant impact on his mental health.

Miss Colley said: "It was after that, that perhaps to deal with matters, he distanced himself from his family and lived in the centre of Leeds."

Mis Colley said McFarlane started to display paranoid behaviour after using cannabis.

Jailing McFarlane for five-years-and-three-months, Judge Neil Clark told him: "This offending is among the worst and most vile that I have come across."

Judge Clark imposed an indefinite restraining order banning McFarlane from contacting the woman and her son.