Man threatened to blow up flat

Philip Smallman, 42, of Sandringham Drive in Leigh sent a message to Abbie Johnston via her friend Dawn Knowles after a drinking session.

Prosecutor Tess Kenyon told Wigan and Leigh magistrates that the order had been made at an earlier hearing.

But Smallman had told her via her friend that she should “watch her flat in case it gets blown up.

However Colin Rawson, defending, said that the exact phrases used by Smallman were disputed ...if not the intent behind the message.

Smallman, he said, knows that he had consumed too much alcohol which had impaired his judgement. And there would be no repeat of the behaviour. He had no intention of carrying it out.

The chairman of the bench told Smallman: “You issued a specific threat to petrol bomb the flat causing significant psychological affect to the victim.”

He was given a three-month custodial sentence suspended for a year and he must also pay a £115 victim surcharge and £100 compensation.