A judge has imposed an indefinite restraining order on a father-of-three after he climbed a drainpipe to get into his former partner's bedroom.

In May last year, 23-year-old Michelle Bailey woke at about 7am to find Darren Brough clambering through the bedroom window of her home in the Tyersal area of Bradford.

Miss Bailey, who had an alarm fitted at her home due to previous incidents involving Brough, later told police that he had been shouting abuse at her and saying things like: "Wait till I get my hands on you."

Prosecutor David McGonigal said Miss Bailey ran from the house leaving the three children behind and went to her parents' home a few doors away.

The police were contacted and when Brough was arrested soon after he said he had climbed through the window because he wanted to talk to his former partner.

Mr McGonigal said Brough told officers he had acted on the spur of the moment and accepted that Miss Bailey would have been frightened.

The court heard yesterday that the couple had been in a relationship for about seven years, but in the six months leading up to May things had deteriorated.

Brough, 24, had been told to move out, but Mr McGonigal said there had been other incidents prior to him climbing in through the window. On May 1 he had visited the house and damaged a door with a spade and three days later he turned up again shouting abuse at Miss Bailey.

Brough, of Tyersal Lane, Bradford, was given bail by the police after he disturbed Miss Bailey in her bedroom. But despite being told not to contact her, Mr McGonigal said he tried to phone her three times before he turned up at her house again the next day.

In October last year Brough admitted an offence of putting a person in fear of violence through harassment.

Yesterday, Judge Linda Sutcliffe made him the subject of a two-year community rehabilitation order with a condition that he attend a domestic violence programme.

But after hearing there were still difficulties regarding contact with the children she also imposed the restraining order.

Brough has now been banned from contacting her by telephone and must not go within a mile and a half of her home.

Barrister Sukhbir Bassra, for Brough, said his client had been using drugs after suffering what was almost a nervous breakdown.

He suggested that the drugs had changed his client's character and caused him to pursue the course of conduct that he did.

Judge Sutcliffe told Brough: "Offences of this kind are always very frightening for the people on the receiving end of this sort of conduct."