A 32-year-old Colchester man who set fire to his former partner’s car and called her nearly 200 times in one day after she asked him to leave her home following a row has been jailed for 56 months.

Before leaving the house on December 18 last year Kyial Booth cut the cables to the woman’s television, Christmas lights, Sky box and a lamp and slashed three tyres on her car, Ipswich Crown Court heard.

Several days later he called her 197 times in one day and left 37 voicemails as well a string of abusive texts.

On New Year’s Eve she received a call from a friend saying her car was on fire and when she went outside she found the black Vauxhall Astra, which was worth £1,200, was completely destroyed.

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Booth, of Finchingfield Way, Colchester, admitted arson on New Year’s Eve last year, stalking his former partner between December 18 last year and January 1 this year, threatening to destroy or damage property, criminal damage and breach of a suspended prison sentence.

In addition to being jailed he was banned from contacting his former partner for ten years.

Sentencing him Judge David Pugh said Booth’s former partner had allowed him to move back into her home at a time when he was homeless and trying to address his issues with drugs and alcohol and he had repaid her kindness by committing the offences the court had heard about.

Judge Pugh said cutting the wires to electrical items in her house just before Christmas had been particularly cruel and mean.

He said Booth had been under the influence of drink and drugs at the time of the offences and a psychiatrist had found no evidence of mental illness.

Barry Gilbert for Booth said his client had never been accused of being violent to his former partner and had only used violence towards her property.