Jailed: Barking man who threatened to kill woman unless she told him who was having sex with his ex-girlfriend
Frederick Potter has been jailed. Picture: SUFFOLK POLICE - Credit: Suffolk Police
A man from Barking has been jailed for threatening to kill a woman unless she told him who his ex-girlfriend had been having sex with.
Frederick Potter, of Tomlins Orchard, held a knife to the terrified woman’s neck and said she had a set number of seconds to tell him what he wanted to know during the incident in Haverhill, Suffolk, in June last year.
Ipswich Crown Court heard on Monday the 34-year-old made cutting motions to her neck to illustrate what he would do if she disobeyed him and had stabbed himself causing a puncture wound which started bleeding.
Claire Matthews, prosecuting, told the court he had also checked the front door of the house to make sure it was locked, pushed his former partner around and smashed her mobile phone.
The incident came to an end after Potter made a telephone call saying he was holding his former partner and her friend hostage and was going to kill one of them.
Two men he knew arrived and persuaded Potter to leave, said Miss Matthews.
Potter admitted assault by beating, criminal damage, two offences of false imprisonment and three offences of threatening to kill.
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Jailing him for five years with an extended licence period of two years, Judge David Goodin described Potter as “dangerous” and said he posed a significant risk to members of the public of serious harm by the commission of similar offences in the future.
He described the offences committed by Potter as “frightening and terrifying”.
Miss Matthews said that in August last year another woman who had been in a relationship with Potter was with a female friend at a house in Haverhill in the early hours of the morning when Potter arrived in an agitated state.
While at the house he picked up a knife and made as if to stab his girlfriend in the leg causing her to scream.
He then ordered her to go into a bedroom and to lie on the bed.
Potter had then stabbed the knife towards the woman’s stomach but fortunately the duvet took the impact and she was not injured.
Ashley Hendron, mitigating for Potter, said the current offences represented an escalation in his client’s offending.
