Man made threats after ban from nightclub

A Spalding man who was refused entry to a Bourne night club, began a ‘campaign against the door staff’, a court has been told.

Toby Dawson (23), of London Road, admitted four charges of harassment without violence when he appeared before magistrates in Boston.

Prosecuting, Dale Brownless said the harassment had started from a ‘minor incident’ at the Late Bar in Bourne on a Saturday evening August 14, when he was refused entry as he and his brother had been given a ban some years before.

Mr Brownless said that should have been ‘the end of it’ but Dawson then began a ‘campaign against the two door staff’ by ‘making threats against them that he ‘knew where they lived’ and the following day he contacted the manager of the door staff, again saying he ‘knew where they lived’ and he ‘knew boys who could get them’.

He said Dawson also sent messages to the wife of one of them demanding his phone number and confirmation of his address as well as posting a Facebook entry trying to find out where he lived.

Brownless said that after a friend blocked him on Facebook, he sent a ‘barrage of messages and 27 calls to his partner and contacted his employer on Instagram.

He said that when police saw him in October, he told them he had been banned from the club four years before and he thought this was unfair and he had been trying to find them to find out why he was still banned.

The court was told Dawson had a previous conviction for harassment against a former girlfriend and for a number of breaches of the restraining order that had been imposed.

Mitigating, Philipa Chatterton said Dawson had made ‘full and frank admissions’ of the offences and pointed out that he had just one conviction for harassment and the remaining convictions had been for breaching the order and that had led to a suspended prison sentence being imposed, which had now expired.

She said he had gone to the club thinking he could get in as it was not him but his brother who had misbehaved leading to the ban and he thought it was unjust when he was refused entry.

She said he appeared to have an obsessive personality but had never seen a doctor about it but added that the threats made were ‘empty threats made in the heat of the moment’.

She pointed out he had not breached his bail conditions of not contacting the four victims.

After hearing from the probation service, the magistrates ordered a 12-month community order with 25 rehabilitation days and 80 hours of unpaid work for the community.

He was also ordered to pay a total of £195 in court costs and charges and imposed a restraining order for all four victims for a year.