An abusive boyfriend has been jailed after he flouted an order to stay away from his partner and smashed the front door of her Newton Abbot home.

Joseph Miller defied a restraining order by going to ex-girlfriend Gemma Bishop’s home in Newton Abbot where he uprooted an estate agent’s For Sale sign and hurled it through the glass door.

It was the third time he had broken the restraining order in the space of a few months and it happened the night before he was due in court for one of the earlier offences.

Miller, aged 21, had been in a relationship with 27-year-old Miss Bishop for 11 months before they broke up last year, Exeter Crown Court was told.

The relationship was characterised by a string of violent incidents including one in which Miller attacked a stranger with a dog chain when he tried to stop him bullying Miss Bishop.

Miller, of Abbotsbury Road, Newton Abbot, admitted criminal damage and breaching a restraining order and was jailed for 18 months by Assistant Judge Advocate General Alan Large.

He told him: ’Your life has gone horrendously wrong. You have allowed an emotional attachment to a young lady and a relationship to lead you into repeated offending.

’You have been before the court an extraordinary number of times and the time has come when you have to face the music and serve a prison sentence.

’There may have been confusion about Miss Bishop’s attitude to you, but there could not have been any confusion about the court order. The trouble is that when you have had a skinful it went to the back of your mind.’

Ian Graham, prosecuting, said all Miller’s offence followed him receiving a 20 month suspended sentence in May last year for lashing out with a dog chain at a completely innocent stranger who intervened in a drunken row between him and Miss Bishop.

In the next few months he smashed a window at her home during an argument, threatening to burn her house down, and attacked her and a friend named Bronwyn Evans.

The restraining order was imposed by Plymouth Crown Court in November after that offence but the next month he breached it by meeting her at a club in Torquay and going back to her home where police were called to another violent argument.

He was due to be sentenced for that offence earlier this month when he broke the order again by going to her home at Mellons Walk, Newton Abbot, on January 20 and throwing the sign through her door, causing £150 damage.

Peter Seigne, mitigating, said Miller was confused by mixed messages from Miss Bishop, who continued to call him after the restraining order was made and who invited him to her house.

She had told police ’we are as bad as each other’ when they were called to her house in December.

He said Miller is a hard working man who plans to make a clean start when he comes out of jail.

Miller was branded a drunken thug by a different Judge at the same court when he was sentenced for the dog chain attack last year.

That offence took place outside the Enigma club in Newton Abbot, where Good Samaritan Toby Porter stepped in to stop Miller bullying his partner.

Miller wrapped one end of the chain around his hand and used the other like a whip to lash out at the innocent victim, causing cuts and bruises to his arms.