A MAN who trashed a Kendal flat before threatening to harm the occupant and warning them to 'wait for the bloodbath', has been jailed.

Stewart Lea, 40, sent a host of texts to Carrie Anne Robinson on February 22, two days after their relationship had ended.

He then went around to the flat of a man who his former girlfriend had previously admitted to kissing. He made threats over text message and damaged the flat, throwing a television into the shower and turning the water on.

He admitted burglary with intent to commit criminal damage and an offensive weapon charge, which related to a separate incident, when he was in possession of a metal dumb bell on April 24.

After jailing Lea for two years at Carlisle Crown Court this week, Judge Simon Medland QC said: "It was obvious from the text messages that you had been building yourself up into a boiling rage against him, making all kinds of hair-raising threats of very serious violence, of damage and, indeed, a threat to kill.”

The court was told now Lea had sent a number of messages to the victim.

In those messages, Lea vowed to harm a man she had previously admitted kissing.

Like her, that man lived within a block of flats at Lound Road from which Lea had been banned because of his drunken and volatile behaviour. ‬

“Wait for the bloodbath,” Lea had stated to Miss Robinson. “I won’t rest until my fists are red.”

He also threatened: “I am a fighter. I will put him in intensive care. If not, I will kill him and laugh.”‬

‪Lea then broke into the man’s flat while he was out, throwing his television into a shower and turning on the water, badly damaging a coffee table and smashing up a phone and watch.

The man later told police he was upset because the phone had contained sentimental photographs of his late grandfather, to whom the watch had also belonged.‬

Sarah Magill, defending, said Lea, of Kent Street, Kendal, was a “vulnerable adult” who had endured a difficult start to life, and been plagued by drug habit which he had latterly substituted with alcohol misuse.

She also added that the incident was fuelled by alcohol, and Lea labelled himself an 'idiot'.‬

‪“He asserts that, but for the drink, he would never have committed these two offences,” said Ms Magill.

"In his own words ‘I am not a hardened criminal, I am just an idiot’.”‬ ‪‬‬