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Neil Skiffington also jailed for 16 months after breaching order preventing contact with Gwent Police.

Skiffington had expressed his 'pleasure' at the torment of one of the officers

Date - 3rd September 2019
By - Ceysun Dixon 

3 Comments

 

A man has been banned from contacting all UK police forces and jailed for 16 months after making “veiled threats” to serving officers.

Neil Skiffington, 36, was jailed for a second time within a year at Newport Crown Court after pleading guilty to two counts of a breach of a restraining order which prohibited him from contacting officers from Gwent Police.

The court heard that Skiffington, of Dockwell Terrace, Newport, had threatened two officers after he was released from prison in April having been jailed for threatening to “take out” the family members of one of the officers.

After his release on licence for the original case despite the restraining order in place, Skiffington made 10 further phone calls to Gwent Police during July and August, which originally began as inquires to locate property seized in relation to his original conviction.    

Eight of these phone calls soon turned ugly and were “aggressive and abusive” in nature. Operators were forced to terminate some of the calls due to the level of abuse they received.

He also made references in other phone calls that Gwent Police were trying to “stitch him up” and called one of the officers “corrupt” adding: “I will just leave it a couple of years and then bang.”

He also expressed his “pleasure” that one of the officers he had threatened had a panic button installed in his home as a result of his persistent threats.  

On one occasion he mentioned where the officer lived and said he was going to “place things on the internet reporting those officers”.

The court was told that Skiffington had harboured “grievances” towards officers from Gwent Police since 2015, when they investigated a case of harassment and unlawful wounding of a partner, for which he was jailed.

Detective constable Michelle Thorne said: “Neil Skiffington chose to use and abuse the 101 system and make a number of malicious comments towards Gwent Police staff members and Police Officers.

"He has continued to telephone Gwent Police and cause harassment with offensive and abusive calls. He has shown total disregard for the restraining orders put in place by the court to protect those officers involved and to prevent further offences from taking place.

"Not only did Skiffington cause distress to those persons that the comments were aimed at, he also took up the valuable time of call centre staff who had to deal with Skiffington and his outrageous behaviour.”

An amended restraining was also handed out which will prohibit him from contacting any police force in England and Wales - unless it is an emergency or through his solicitor. 

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