A NIGHT of drinking in Swindon to celebrate his release from prison resulted in a man breaching a restraining order and being arrested for Facebook messaging the victim he had assaulted, magistrates heard.

Haydn Andrews, admitted harassment by contacting the woman on July 1 on the social media site when he was banned from doing so by an order imposed on April 1.

Prosecutor Keith Ballinger told Swindon Magistrates' Court on Friday an indefinite restraining order preventing Andrews from contacting the woman had been imposed following his conviction for a number of assaults on her.

But on June 30, a day after being realised from Bullingdon prison, he contacted her through Facebook.

“They were in a six month relationship which ended when he went to prison for the offences of violence against her,” Mr Ballinger told the court on Friday.

However when the victim’s mother checked her Facebook account for her she discovered attempts to contact her through voice messages.

In them the defendant was heard swearing and describing the victim offensively.

When interviewed by police Andrews, 24, of Westcroft, Chippenham, said he had come out of prison on the 30th and gone out drinking in Swindon with friends.

He denied trying to make contact with the woman, but when police played recordings on the voice message he made no further comment.

Moses Uzodima-Tawo, defending, said his client had taken a lot of persuading to plead guilty to the offence but he added: “He does not deny there was some form of contact between the accounts.”

“Mr Andrews listened to the messages – they are, for the want of a better word, total gibberish.”

He said Andrews could not come to terms with the fact the garbled messages had been sent.

What had happened, said Mr Uzodima-Tawo, was that his conversation with a friend had been recorded, which suggested the call had been unintentional.

“He will effectively block the complainant from his Facebook account and that removes the possibility of any contact,” said Mr Uzodima-Tawo.

He said his client was due to start his new job as a binman the following week.

The magistrates fined Andrews £120 with another £85 in prosecution costs and £30 towards victim services.

He was also reminded the restraining order was indefinite and meant he was to have no contact, either directly or indirectly, with the victim.