A MAN has been jailed for sending a series of ‘vile and threatening’ messages in which he threatened to batter a family, ‘kill the kids and stab the horses.’

Paul O’Reilly’s 36 previous offences included Section 18 GBH, unlawful wounding, common assault, criminal damage, battery and assault on an emergency worker, Bradford Crown Court heard.

O’Reilly, 36, of Redcliffe Street, Keighley, was sentenced on a video link to Leeds Prison after admitting harassment with fear of violence over a three-day period and hitting a custody officer with a cup of water.

Prosecutor Richard Walters said O’Reilly’s long-standing grievance flared up in Greggs in Keighley last October when he made a threat to kill a man.

He then sent a series of Snapchat messages to the man’s partner in which he said he would ‘put him next to his dad.’ Mr Walters said the man’s father was deceased and she interpreted that as a threat to kill.

O’Reilly said the family would all get battered and he would kill the kids and stab the horses.

On October 23, he uploaded a video that wasn’t sent to the victim in which he appeared to load a gun. He was arrested that day and became abusive at Bradford’s Trafalgar House Police Station, throwing a cup of water in his cell that struck the custody officer.

Police searching his home found a deactivated weapon and a single bullet.

In mitigation, it was said that O’Reilly had a traumatic childhood in which he had found his mother dead at the family home. He had significant difficulties managing his emotions and had allowed his anger to grow and grow inside him.

He himself had been stabbed two months before he committed the offences and those responsible had not been brought to justice. That had heightened his anxiety and he was drinking heavily at the time he sent the messages.

In a moment of sobriety, he had apologised for them.

The court heard that O’Reilly was determined to stay clear of drink and drugs. He had the chance of work on the railways through a rehabilitation scheme that would almost guarantee him a job.

Judge Roger Thomas KC sentenced O’Reilly to 12 months imprisonment.

He said he had a ‘woeful record’ for violence and disorder and the messages were ‘the vilest and most threatening.’ But he conceded O’Reilly’s very poor start in life and hoped the rail scheme worked out for him.

A five-year restraining order bans O’Reilly from contacting the woman or her partner by any means and from posting anything about them on social media.