A jilted dad sent chilling social media messages making death threats to his ex and her friends.
Brian Hardie, 36, repeatedly contacted Emma Mason, her boyfriend Kenneth Friel and her friend John McKinlay with torrents of vile abuse.
In one, he threatened to cut her throat the next time he saw her.
Kat Craig, prosecuting, told Livingston Sheriff Court the stalking behaviour began with a message from Hardie’s Facebook account to Mr Friel on July 29.
It read: “If you even think for a second you can get near my daughter, dig a hole. On my life, I’ll put you in it.”
That evening, Miss Mason received several subsequently deleted voice messages and texts, one of which said he loved her.
On August 8, Mr McKinlay got a message from the accused asking: “How many times have you been told about chatting to Emma? You’re still chatting her up.”
Further messages warned him to “stay the f*** away. Clearly this is causing trouble.”
Another accused Emma of “flaunting herself” and calling her a “slag”. He added that “the next time he saw her she’d be getting her f**king throat cut.”
He also told her he hoped she would die in her sleep. Mrs Craig said: “He told her not to ignore him and said it was a shame he never put her in a coma.
“He again called her fat and ugly and said no one would ever want her because she was ‘damaged goods’.
“Mr McKinlay received a voice message from the Facebook account of Brian Hardie warning him to stay away from the complainer saying: ‘I’m going to f***ing murder you.”
Mrs Craig described Emma as “constantly living in fear”.
Hardie, of Falkirk, admitted abusive behaviour by repeatedly sending social media messages and voicemails to three people between July 29 and August 9.
Murray Aitken, defending, said the accused was currently serving a 20-month prison sentence for breaching court orders for domestically aggravated offences.
He said the latest charge was a “significant escalation” of his earlier behaviour.
Sheriff Douglas Kinloch sentenced Hardie to 87 days in prison, to start from the end of his current sentence.
He told the accused: “Abusive behaviour is behaviour likely to cause her physical or psychological harm. It’s abusive if it’s threatening her, frightening her or humiliating her.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that you did all of those things.”
