Jealous Bassetlaw man "flipped" and attacked ex-partner over Facebook "like"

Steven Dobb became angry at his home in Retford, on June 23, last year, and this made her want to leave, prosecutor Almas Ben-Aribia told Nottingham Crown Court.

When she went to call a taxi he snatched her phone and smashed it on the tiled floor, shouting aggressively and scaring her.

Dobb grabbed her around the neck, ripping her dress, and pushed her to the floor where he kicked her in the lower back, screaming "Why?"

When the woman got outside she climbed into her dad's grey Ford mobility car and locked the doors.

But Dobb repeatedly punched the driver's side window until it shattered, then threw a gas cannister at the bonnet and smashed the windscreen.

She drove off and flagged down a member of the public, Ms Ben-Aribia said, causing Dobb, who had followed her in his car, to flee. She was left with bruising and her father had to pay £100 insurance excess for repairs.

The court heard they met in the summer of 2018, but a restraining order was imposed last year. They reconciled in May and had a “nice time” in a Bawtry pub before the incident.

In 2019, the court heard he harassed the same woman "at all hours," and assaulted her outside her parents' home.

He sent pictures of a knife and a baseball bat with threats to kill her, and was arrested with the weapons in his car. He received an 11-month sentence, suspended for two years, in April 2019, and the new offences put him in breach of that.

Stuart Lody, mitigating, said: “He contacted the police of his own volition a week later because he wanted to set matters right.”

Dobb had suffered from mental ill-health for three to four years, he said, but cooperated with probation to tackle issues of "toxic masculinity.”

"If he was sent to prison it would only serve to punish him and there would be no continuation of the rehabilitative work.”

Dobb, 40, of Great North Road, Retford, pleaded guilty to common assault and criminal damage, on December 23, last year.

On Wednesday, Recorder Balraj Bhatia QC jailed Dobb for 12 months.

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