A Tayside dad has been ordered to pay his wife and children £3,000 in compensation after a two-month course of “terrifying” conduct against his spouse.
The estranged father became so paranoid about the situation that he set blinds in the family home in such a way that he could see into the living room from outside when he left the property to spy on his wife texting.
In another incident, the businessman’s frightened children forced a locked bathroom door open with a knife as he tried to wrestle his wife’s mobile phone from her grip.
Forfar Sheriff Court heard the couple are now attempting to rebuild their 14-year marriage, but the 36-year-old man’s behaviour was condemned by Sheriff Gregor Murray as he ordered the accused to pay £1,000 compensation to his wife and each of his two children.
The man, whose address was given as a house in Dundee, admitted that between August 1 and October 12, at a property in Angus, he engaged in a course of conduct that caused fear and alarm to his wife, consistently checked her mobile phone for text messages, struggled with her and positioned blinds at the address in a way that would allow him to watch her from outside.
Depute fiscal Jill Drummond said the first incident took place around 11.30pm when the accused attempted to get his wife’s mobile phone from her, resulting in the struggle in which he locked her inside the bathroom. The screaming wife believed she fainted at one point during the tussle, and the incident was heard by a neighbour, whose home the accused went to the following day with flowers and chocolates to apologise for the previous evening’s events.
The fiscal then told the court that the man, who was being allowed back to the family home at certain times, told his wife he knew she had been texting because he had been “watching her for the past hour.”
The woman noticed the blinds had been moved in such a way that he could see in.
She re-arranged them after the accused left the house, but he returned on the pretence of having left something there, and when he left again she noticed that they had been moved again.
On October 12 the woman contacted police and inquiries into the man’s behaviour led to his arrest. The accused’s solicitor said the couple, who have been together for 22 years, separated in July.
The woman had contacted police with a view to having them give her husband a warning about his behaviour, but was “appalled” by the level of intervention thereafter.
“He has never been in a court and the couple have struggled to deal with what has happened.”
Sheriff Murray told the accused: “No parent should behave in that way, it’s no wonder your wife was terrified.”