Man jailed after 769 calls to ex in one day

A pub chef has been jailed after bombarding his former partner with 769 calls and texts in a single day – despite being banned from contacting her under a 10-year restraining order. 📱⚖️

Richard Lloyd Ellis, 32, from Heol Taliesin, Cwmavon, Afan Valley, was sentenced to 30 months in prison at Swansea Crown Court after admitting harassment and breaching a restraining order.

The court heard that Ellis was released from custody in May after serving time for strangling his partner in October last year. Despite the restraining order prohibiting contact until October 2034, he immediately began calling and texting the woman.

After she made it clear she didn’t want to rekindle the relationship, prosecutor Georgia Donohue said the woman was subjected to a “torrent” of threatening and abusive texts, calls, and voice messages. Ellis would sometimes contact her hundreds of times a day, with 769 contacts recorded on one day in September.

He also created multiple fake Facebook profiles to post threats. Remarkably, whilst the woman was giving her statement to police, Ellis rang her 66 times.

When arrested and asked about the threats, Ellis replied: “She probably deserved it.”

The defendant has 34 previous convictions for 51 offences including robbery, burglary, arson, battery, and criminal damage. He had been sentenced to two years for intentional strangulation in October last year and was released on licence on 1 May. During his harassment campaign, he also appeared at court for stealing a wallet from a pensioner with dementia at a Cwmavon barber’s shop, receiving a suspended sentence for that “mean and sly” offence.

Defence barrister James McKenna said there could be no excuses for the words used or volume of messages, describing the behaviour as “utterly deplorable”. He said Ellis had told him he had simply “lost his head”.

Judge Paul Thomas KC said Ellis had persistently and brazenly defied the court order and “done everything possible to make her life a misery”. He described Ellis as a “wholly inadequate and obsessive man”.

Ellis received 28 months for the harassment and breach, with two months of his suspended sentence activated consecutively, making a total of 30 months. He will serve up to half in custody before being released on licence. The restraining order remains in place until October 2034.