‘Just friends’ spurned lover denies telephone harassment (From Worcester News)

‘Just friends’ spurned lover denies telephone harassment

4:10pm Sunday 5th July 2009 in

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A SPURNED boyfriend bombarded his agoraphobic ex-lover with 168 texts in the space of a few days and told her and her ‘freaky’ friends to ‘rot in hell’.

Daniel Cox, aged 33, of Lon-don Road, Worcester, admitted harassment of his ex-partner Coleen Phillips when he appeared at Worcester Magistrates Court.

The harassment took place between Friday, June 26, and Wednesday, July 1, after his ex-partner insisted she wanted to just remain friends with him.

Marie Watton, prosecuting, said Cox also called her 13 times in 20 minutes and that he would call her up to 30 times a day.

Miss Watton also read out some of Cox’s text messages to the court which accused his former girlfriend of playing games and of seeing other men. She said some but not all of the messages were abusive. One of them read: “You and your freaky stirring mates can rot in hell for all I care.”

Miss Watton said: “Miss Phillips is agoraphobic and her mobile phone is her lifeline. The messages are not threatening her – they’re just abusive.

“Cox stated that he had sent 168 text messages and had rung her.

“He said he didn’t mean to harass her but accepted that that volume of messages amounted to harassment.”

The case was adjourned for a pre-sentence report to be prepared.

Bail was granted on condition that Cox does not contact the victim directly or indirectly – which includes telephone calls, e-mails and text messages – not to go within 150 metres of Miss Phillips’ home in Dent Close, Worcester, and to keep his appointment with the probation service.

The case was adjourned until Monday, July 20.