Mansfield man threatened to chop up ex with machete after being jailed for assaulting her

Patrick McGrath was jailed for 16 weeks in July 2022 and banned from contacting his partner of nine years but breached the restraining order shortly after his release, Nottingham Crown Court was told.

She “consented to some contact in order to keep things civil” but had to block and unblock him as his mood changed and he became verbally abusive.

In August last year he accused her of being with other men and told her friend: “I swear I will kill over her.”

In September he asked her if she had been sleeping with someone and threatened to chop her up with a machete.

McGrath was drinking or taking drugs when he bombarded her with texts and and left multiple abusive voicemails over a 15 month period. One said “When I find out who you have been sleeping with they will get ran over. I ain't scared of no one.”

He sent an explicit video to upset her and threatened to blackmail her, the court was told.

When McGrath was interviewed by two female officers he complained “she always had the police backing her” and said “he would prefer to speak to a bloke”.

His victim said she contemplated taking her own life and leaving her children behind because of his abuse.

“What Patrick did to me was degrading,” she said. “I gave him so many chances to change. He made me feel worthless, like something off the bottom of his shoe.”

The court heard McGrath, aged 33, of Noel Street, Mansfield, has ten previous convictions including assaults in 2017 and 2022.

Lucy Jones, mitigating, said he deserved credit for his guilty pleas to harassment - breach of a restraining order and stalking involving fear of violence.

“This is the only relationship he has had,” she said. “The relationship was continuing, to some degree, mutually. He had recently lost his mother. He has been in custody for eight and a half months.”

On Wednesday Judge Steven Coupland jailed him for 27 months. A restraining order will continue until further notice.

“Breach it again and you go to prison straight away regardless of anything else you have done,” the judge told him.