A MAN who theatened to bury his former partner in a garden has been fitted with an electronic tag and has a restraining order imposed against him.

Blair Egerton, 28, previously pleaded guilty to one charge of harassment causing fear of violence against the mother of his children between November 27, 2015, and January 7, 2016.

Egerton appeared before magistrates sitting in Swindon to be sentenced on Monday morning where he represented himself from the dock.

The court heard Egerton, of Manor Crescent, had been in a relationship with his victim for eight years, but the relationship had come to an end earlier last year. They remained in contact for the purposes of arranging childcare.

Prosecuting, Michelle Hewitt told the magistrates Egerton had inundated her with voicemails, some of which made threats to her and her family.

On December 5 he went to her address and banged on her door, making further threats of violence and demanding to know why he was hearing that she had been going out all of the time. She made a silent phonecall to police who attended the address.

She showed them messages from him which said: "I am going to bury you in the back garden" and "I am going to go around to your mum's house and smash it up".

He denies making threats against her mother as he said he had a good relationship with her.

"She really did believe the defendant was capable of carrying out those threats when he was in a rage," said Ms Hewitt.

After he left the property he called her 20 times, leaving voice messages and further 31 messages were also received.

"The victim says it was an abusive relationship, the defendant does have previous convictions and police say there have been a number of call outs to the address," said Ms Hewitt.

Egerton, who was due to start work at a new job on the day of his sentencing, offered no defence.

Sentencing him, chairman of the bench Timothy Foster said: "We have thought long and hard about this. To be honest, our decisions were not made any easier by some of the things we read in the report, we looked at unpaid work but your reaction was unhelpful."

Egerton was sentenced to a curfew order for six months, during which he must live and sleep at his home address between 7pm and 4am, seven days a week. He will be fitted with an electronic tag to monitor this.

He must also carry out 30 rehabilitative days during a six month community order, pay prosecution costs of £85 and a victim surcharge of £60.

A restraining order to protect the victim for 18 months was imposed, during which Egerton may only contact her to arrange childcare.