AN ALCOHOLIC who threatened to kill a woman’s cat in a three-year campaign of abuse has been spared jail.

Christopher Dicks, of Lyndhurst Road, Hinton St Admiral, verbally abused employees of Meyrick Estate Management Ltd, a court heard.

The 53-year-old is a protected tenant living in house neighbouring the company’s offices and could not be evicted even after he shouted at staff.

Prosecuting, Richard Tutt said the defendant was first sentenced to a two-year restraining order that prohibited him from entering the area in October 2011, but he went on to breach that on a number of occasions including five times in the last year.

He approached one woman on a number of occasions, telling her that if she upset his mother again, she’d “go through the window”.

At one point he said to the woman: “Keep looking over your shoulder – your time has come.”

“He also made threats to kill her cat,” the prosecutor said.

Dicks, who denied harassing or verbally abusing the woman and a colleague during initial interviews with the police, eventually admitted a single count of breaching a restraining order at Bournemouth Crown Court.

During the incident, he approached the office window of the company’s chief executive, Paul Hanson, before “leering” at him and saying: “You need to get another job, I’m going to have you.”

Mitigating, Nick Robinson said Dicks had been under the influence of alcohol at the time of the offences, but had been making good progress with an alcohol treatment programme and had not reoffended in the last six months.

Judge John Harrow said to Dicks: “This behaviour has to stop. You are not just a nuisance, but causing upset and distressing members of staff.”

Dicks was sentenced to five months in prison, suspended for two years, after admitting the breach.

The judge told Dicks that he faces jail if the order is breached again.

Dicks must also perform 80 hours of unpaid work within 12 months.