Preston man jailed over harassing and assaulting hospital worker

Arron Greaves-Clitheroe, of Delaware Street, Ribbleton, Preston, has a history of domestic related violence and harassment, Preston's Sessions House Court was told, and was subject to a five years restraining order after a previous assault on the same young woman.

In a statement the victim, 19, she was considering changing her daily routine because he knew where she worked and how she travelled, and said: " Due to his behaviour I feel scared whenever I leave the house, scared of being alone with him and scared of what might have happened if members of the public hadn't have been present."

Prosecuting, Emma Keogh said: " She had known the defendant since September 2018. They became more than friends by July 2019.

"When one reads the evidence in relation to his previous conviction it's clear from her evidence that there were issues in the relationship long before that conviction, and she felt to a certain degree she was being controlled by the defendant.

"He was checking her social media accounts and phone, and then of course he assaulted her

"Subsequent to the order being in force she accepts she was complicit in continuing communication between them, sometimes on the X-box and sometimes on phone speaking to the each other, and the defendant was asking the victim to go and meet him, often suggesting the back alley near to where she lives, but she didn't go and meet him.

"She did however sustain a new job at the hospital and he offered to take her to that employment on a daily basis, and to prevent her getting a bus she in fact agreed he could take her to that employment.

"The first three breaches are him taking her to that place of work and picking her up as well, because he was precluded from doing that."

However on September 9, the victim had decided she wanted her parents to pick her up as it was her birthday.

Ms Keogh added: " He was immediately upset and angry and because of the way he retaliated to the news she became concerned about being in any kind of contact with him and how it would progress if things went forwards, so she told him this wasn't going to happen anymore.

"Thereafter she made it perfectly clear to the defendant she did not want contact with him anymore.

"He did not accept this was the aces."

On September 10 her uncle saw Greaves-Clitheroe outside her address just after 8pm and when he approached and asked where he was going, he said he was visiting a friend, but then ran away.

The next day her uncle was at a bus stop waiting to go to work when he saw the defendant again in his car.

Greaves-Clitheroe then went to a bus stop near a Greggs bakery in Fulwood, where she caught the bus to, and approached her at the bakery.

The court heard she did not want to speak to him and told him she would contact the police.

She tried to walk away with her phone to her ear but he snatched it away.

The frightened woman then fled and went into work and police were alerted.

.Greaves-Clitheroe admits five breaches of the order, and assault.

Judge Heather Lloyd jailed him for 18 months and refused to suspend it due to his previous offending and failure to comply with the court order.

She rejected a claim in his pre sentence report that he "only now realised" the implication of a restraining order, when it was his third such order.

The report said he wanted to "exert control over his partner or former partners".

She added: "You would not leave your poor victim in this case alone.

"It may well be that initially she was complicit, but she was an 18 year old girl, you are significantly older than her."

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