'You should be thoroughly ashamed': Son jailed for campaign of harassment towards his mum and dad

A son who carried out a campaign of harassment against his own mother and father has been sent to prison.
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Thomas Sherlock defied a restraining order and continued to threaten his parents with violence and demand money from them.

A court heard Sherlock called his mother's workplace 26 times and rang her mobile phone 24 times in the same afternoon.

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The 22-year-old also sent threatening messages to his father as he demanded a lift.

Phillip Adams, prosecuting, said Sherlock was made the subject of a restraining order in August last year when he was given a short prison sentence for harassing his parents.

He was then convicted of assaulting his father and breaching the order a month later.

Leeds Crown Court heard Sherlock was released from prison on November 23 and housed next door to his father's home in Pontefract.

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Mr Adams said that it caused his father anxiety as he had been given assurances by the Probation Service that his son would be housed some distance away.

Sherlock rang his mother three days after being released.

He said he wanted his father to pick him up from the railway station but he was not answering his phone.

Sherlock asked his mother to pick him up but she refused.

The defendant then turned up at the post office where she worked and began shouting and swearing at her.

He followed her inside the premises and continued to be aggressive.

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Mr Adams said Sherlock was in breach of the restraining order by entering the post office.

The defendant sent threatening text messages to his father demanding money and to be picked up from the station.

He then made 50 phone calls to his mother.

Sherlock went to his father's home later that day and demanded a crate of beer.

He tried to enter the property when his father opened a window to speak to him.

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Mr Adam said Sherlock's father punched the defendant in the face during a struggle to keep him out of the property.

Police were called and Sherlock, of Chapel Garth, Ackworth, Pontefract, was arrested.

He pleaded guilty to two counts of harassment and two of breaching a restraining order.

Sherlock's mother provided a victim statement to the court describing how she felt her son's behaviour had caused her marriage to break down.

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She described how her son's behaviour had caused her to suffer from anxiety and depression.

She said she only felt safe when Sherlock was in prison.

Sherlock's father also provided a statement describing how the offending caused him to suffer mentally.

James Littlehales, mitigating, said Sherlock's offending was due to his addiction to class A drugs.

He said: "He was at college studying A Levels, an intelligent young man. He descended in to a downward spiral."

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Mr Littlehales said Sherlock had been free of drugs while in custody and was working hard to address his offending behaviour while in prison.

Sherlock was jailed for two years.

Judge Simon Batiste said: "It is always extremely sad to see someone who has clearly got some ability become so ridden by drug addiction that they could behave in this totally despicable way to their own parents.

"You should be thoroughly ashamed of yourself."