A man who harassed his ex-girlfriend and threatened to reveal explicit images of her has been handed a suspended sentence.

Peter Michael Birchall, of Richmond Close, Douglas, bombarded the woman with phone calls, emails and Facebook pages even using fake accounts to contact her.

The 50-year-old admitted conduct amounting to harassment and was sentenced to three months’ custody, suspended for two years.

He was also made the subject of a one-year suspended sentence supervision order and handed a restraining order which will run until further order.

Magistrates chair Julian Ashcroft told Birchall: ’Your behaviour and threats would have been terrifying.’

Mr Ashcroft said that the sentence was being suspended in light of a psychiatric report and Birchall’s early guilty plea.

We previously reported how Birchall had been in a relationship with the woman for around 18 months when it ended in March this year.

She said that they had argued regularly and said that she was ’tired of walking on eggshells’.

Despite ending things with Birchall he proceeded to send the woman 27 emails and was eventually spoken to by police after she reported him.

However, this still didn’t stop him and he continued to contact her with more emails and even threatened to publish explicit images of her.

On April 19, he was given a Police Information Notice (PIN) which warns the recipient about their harassing behaviour.However, Birchall was still said to have called the woman 18 times, sent her e-mail, texts and Facebook messages, sometimes using aliases.

He was interviewed by police on April 25 and told them he had been struggling with the break-up as he felt he had been treated unfairly.

Birchall admitted emailing the woman a number of times and said on the evening he received the PIN he got drunk and could not remember what he had done.

He also admitted using aliases to contact her via email and Facebook.

He apologised and said that he would not contact her again.

However, on May 12 the woman said she received another e-mail from an anonymous account which she suspected was from Birchall, though denied sending this e-mail.

Birchall pleaded guilty to the harassment charge but said that he had not made contact on May 12.

Defence advocate Darren Taubitz submitted a psychiatric report details of which he said it would not be fair to air in a public forum.

Mr Taubitz said: ’There has been no contact since that police interview and that is a substantial period of time.’

A probation report recommended a suspended sentence supervision order which it was said would tackle the problems identified in the psychiatric report.

’Custody is not going to do anything to assist this man,’ said Mr Taubitz.

Magistrates warned Birchall that if he committed any further imprisonable offences in the next two years the suspended sentence would likely be activated.

He was also ordered to pay £50 prosecution costs.