A HOMELESS man stalked his friend by throwing bricks at her window and setting off a fire alarm after moving out of a flat in which she allowed him to stay.

The woman had known Paul Hodgson, 50, for around three decades.

She allowed Hodgson to stay at her third floor flat in Maryport on Saturday, December 9 last year because he was homeless and the weather was bad.

Hodgson returned at around 6.45pm the following Saturday. “Having apparently climbed the communal stairs and began shouting through her letterbox that he had left his sleeping bag behind when he’d moved his things out earlier that morning,” prosecutor Andrew Evans explained at Carlisle Crown Court.

“She had refused his request to leave things behind, and as a consequence she’d checked after he left that all was gone. He was lying. She ignored him for around an hour. She heard the door lock being fiddled with. After he eventually left she went out to find scratches round the key slot.”

Hodgson returned just before midnight. “She describes hearing things bouncing off her third floor living room window”, hearing the defendant shouting and hearing a neighbour shouting back, said Mr Evans.

“She describes the banging on her windows as continuous for 20 minutes during which she was too scared to look out.”

Hodgson knocked on the flat door and shouted to the woman that he knew she was in.

“She moved within the flat, as far from the front door as possible. The fire alarm went off but she still stayed put, convinced that the defendant had set it off,” said Mr Evans.

“She describes the entire incident as causing her a lot of distress and anxiety, such that she went to sleep in the living room sofa with her dog in case he returned."

Police were called and learned Hodgson, of no fixed address, had set off the fire alarm. They found a four-inch blade in his pocket.

Hodgson was interviewed by police. “He admitted going to her flat and going mad because she was ignoring him. He admitted scraping her door and throwing bricks at her window,” Mr Evans told the court.

Hodgson admitted stalking the woman, possessing the bladed article and criminal damage. The court heard he had 67 previous offences on his record including four for possessing offensive weapons or blades.

He was handed an immediate eight-month jail term.