A “high-risk” stalker is back behind bars — after starting a covert relationship with his victim the day he was released from his last jail sentence.
Brian Edwards was jailed for three years in February 2016 for a catalogue of abuse that included him choking the woman until she fell unconscious in front of her child — the second time he had been locked up for attacking her.
A court previously heard how the terrified child thought her mother was dead when Edwards tried to rouse her.
Even when he was remanded in custody, Edwards continued to harass the woman in letters sent from behind bars that jail chiefs were powerless to stop him sending as opening them would violate his human rights.
A forensic psychologist who assessed him before that jail term was imposed said Edwards “satisfied many of the criteria to be considered a psychopath”, that he “sees nothing wrong with using violence” and “expected to use violence towards his partner”.
Edwards was released early from that sentence on June 28 last year under strict conditions banning him from any contact with the woman, but he immediately set about rekindling their relationship.
Fiscal depute Sue Ruta told Dundee Sheriff Court that despite the catalogue of abuse she had suffered, the woman had indicated she wants Edwards back.
Miss Ruta said that Edwards went to live with his mother while the woman was living at her own address with her child.
She added: “She spoke to police on September 3 about another matter and told police that once he had been released, he had been regularly contacting her by phone, text, personal meetings, visiting her at home and, on one occasion, staying over.”
Edwards, 31, a prisoner at HMP Perth, pleaded guilty on indictment to breaching a non-harassment order between June 28 and September 3 last year at various addresses in Dundee.
Defence advocate Jonathan Crowe said: “They regard each other as husband and wife and co-habited prior to his imprisonment.”
Sheriff Alastair Brown ordered Edwards to return to prison to serve a further 150 days of his original sentence from which he was out on licence when he breached the non-harassment order.
Edwards will then serve a further three months and two weeks in prison consecutive to that sentence.
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