A MAN sent scores of messages and made more than 90 phone calls after his partner ended their relationship, a court heard.

Magistrates were told of how Matthew Brood harassed his ex-partner for days after she broke up with him, bombarding her with unwanted texts and phone calls.

The defendant admitted that his conduct amounted to harassment as he struggled to get over the break-up, but the pair have since reunited.

South Cumbria Magistrates’ Court heard the 34-year-old father also sent a racial slur to a colleague of his former partner and assaulted a police officer when he was apprehended for harassment.

The court heard that Brood, of Benfield in Grasmere, harassed his ex-partner between February 7 and 10.

Magistrates were told the pair had first met in the pub she worked at in the village and had been together for around a year.

Prosecutor Peter Bardsley said: “She said the relationship was great to start with.

“She wanted to end the relationship and he didn’t take the news well.”

The court heard the defendant sent around 40 messages to the woman the weekend after they broke up.

Magistrates were shown messages of the defendant repeatedly expressing his love for her alongside abuse.

In one message he sent her a picture of a knife, saying: “I’m so sorry, this knife is better used on me.

“Enjoy your life. I want to be dead.”

She replied: “No I’m done.”

The woman blocked him on messaging apps leaving texts and phone calls as the only avenue of communication.

He then attempted to call her 91 times over the weekend.

The court heard he had been driving up and down past the pub where the woman worked, leading a colleague to tell him to leave her alone.

He was said to have responded with a racial slur.

In mitigation, Brood’s solicitor John Halewood-Dodd said the lovers had since reconnected, and the defendant’s partner had written a two-page letter to the court asking for leniency.

He said: “It seems clear to me that some of the message shown are not in context.

“They have taken the worst messages he sent to her.

Mr Halewood-Dodd said the defendant, a father of two from a previous relationship, was ‘not heavily convicted’.

He was sentenced to 250 hours of unpaid work and told to give £50 in compensation to the police officer and the woman he sent the racially abusive message to.