A father-of-three subjected his estranged wife to numerous phone calls, once telling her she would not look so attractive with her "face shot off", a court heard.

Greengrocer Paul Lewis was sentenced to a 140-hour community punishment order at Colchester Magistrates' Court yesterday (Wednesday).

He was told to pay £200 compensation to his wife after admitting harassment at a previous hearing.

Donald Oates, prosecuting, told how 43-year-old Lewis had made numerous calls to his wife of ten years after their split in November 2000 until June this year.

Mr Oates said: "She decided she had had enough and decided to leave.

"Since then, she has received a number of phone calls from the defendant, which she did find particularly distressing."

Magistrates heard how Lewis, of Chapel Road, Tiptree, told his wife: "I'm going to come and meet you outside and run you over.

"Me and the boys are in the car tooled up. You won't be very attractive to your boyfriend when you get your face shot off. You know I can get a gun if I really want to."

Lucy Osborn, mitigating, said: "This is very much out of character, but he found himself in a situation that he simply could not cope with.

"He started to drink, and heavily - it was at times like this that these telephone calls were made.

"There is no doubt Mr Lewis will not be making abusive phone calls to his wife from now on."

Magistrates also told Lewis to pay £55 costs and placed a restraining order on him, banning contact with his wife.

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.