A MAN has avoided an immediate prison sentence after being found guilty of harassing two women.

Michael Johnson Fabian, 77, denied two counts of harassment relating to his conduct in 2019 and early 2020.

However, following a trial at Poole Magistrates' Court, the bench found him guilty of both offences on Thursday, June 3.

The court heard that one of the crimes related to Fabian, of Garden's View, Bournemouth, sending a number of unwanted letters to a woman between March 1, 2019, and January 31, last year.

Meanwhile, the other involved him also sending numerous unwanted letters to another woman and attending her place of work uninvited from June 1, 2019, to January 31, 2020.

District Judge Stephen Nicholls committed Fabian to prison for five months, suspended for two years, noting the seriousness of the offence because of the considerable period of harassment, the distress caused and the aggravating factor of previous convictions of a like nature.

He also issued an indefinite restraining order preventing the defendant from contacting the two women and ordered him to pay a £122 surcharge and £620 costs.