A MAN has been jailed after threatening to burn a woman’s house down after she questioned his partner’s parenting skills.

Craig Jeffrey, 32, further threatened a man with an axe before calling a police officer “PC D***head”, Bolton Crown Court heard.

Mark Brookes, prosecuting, said a dispute between Jeffrey, of Townsfield Road, Westhoughton, and the woman resulted in him phoning her 60 times and threatening to burn her house down and petrol bomb the house where she lived with her husband and daughter.

On January 2 this year, Lee Ollerton received a call from the woman about the threats Jeffrey had made and decided to go round to the defendant’s address and confront him.

When Jeffrey opened the front door he was armed with an axe taped to his left hand and a bottle in his right hand.

Mr Bookes said: “He (Jeffrey) threatens Mr Ollerton by saying:’ Ill take your head for knocking on my door’. He continued with: ‘You can bring the police down, Ill take off their heads as well ‘

Mr Ollerton describes the defendant waving the axe round in a threatening manner and throwing the glass bottle at him.”

That evening, the woman heard a noise outside and noticed damage to her car and she called the police.

While they were at the address, Jeffrey called on her mobile which was handed to an officer who asked him to stop.

Jeffrey called the officer “PC D***head” before going on to be racially abusive.

He was arrested later that evening.

Julian King. defending, said Jeffrey, a father of six, “offered remorse and apologies” and added he “found public spaces difficult to deal with”.

Sentencing Jeffrey, who pleaded guilty to putting a person in fear of violence by harassment, threatening another with a bladed article and sending a communication with intent to cause distress or anxiety, to 32 months imprisonment, Judge Tina Langdale, said: “You emerged in combat mode, waved an axe about and were completely out of control.

“There was no excuse for this disgusting and vile behaviour.”