A NEWLY-RELEASED prisoner threatened to stab his ex-partner after learning she had left him for another man while he was in jail.

Joshua Foster started a hate campaign within hours of being freed from Channings Wood Prison near Newton Abbot and told her he would rather kill her than see her with another man.

He threatened to go to the camp site where she was living in Mid Devon and burn her caravan with her inside and contacted members of her family to say he planned to stab her.

The 38-year-old ex-partner was terrified because Foster had been volatile during their relationship and has a long history of violence including the 2019 robbery, which led to him being sent to jail, in which he held a gun to the head of a terrified shopkeeper in North Devon.

He was arrested by police and issued with an order not to contact the victim but broke it by trying to call her as soon as he got out of the police station. Even when he was recalled to prison, he gave other inmates her number so they could call her.

Foster, 21, of St Rumbold Street, Lincoln, and formerly of Gainsborough, admitted harassment and malicious communications and was jailed for 20 weeks by Recorder Mr Rhys Hadden at Exeter Crown Court.

He told him the sentence would have been longer but for the fact that Foster is back in jail, serving a two year, four months sentence for robbing a shop Lincoln and stealing from another in July last year.

The judge said: ‘Your conduct was intended to maximise fear and distress within the context of the relationship between you.’ 

Miss Lisa Denley, prosecuting, said Foster was released from HMP Channings Wood on February 2, 2023, and discovered through Facebook that his ex-partner, who had also taken part in the robbery but had received a shorter jail sentence and been released earlier. 

He had sent her some money but demanded it back after learning their relationship was over and started a series of abusive messages by telling her ‘If you play with fire, you’re going to get burned’.

He called the woman’s 21-year-old son and told him he was going to come to Devon to stab her and her new boyfriend. He said he would go to the campsite near Chulmleigh and ‘burn her caravan while she was locked inside’.

Another message warned he would rather be in prison for killing her than allow her to be with another man. She wrote a victim impact statement in which she said she believed he would not be afraid to carry out his threats.

Miss Bathsheba Cassel, defending, said Foster was very upset at learning for the new relationship but said: ‘They were baseless threats which he never carried out or intended to carry out.’ 

He is now tackling a cocaine addiction while serving a long sentence for a robbery and a theft carried out over the space of two days in Lincoln, for which he was jailed at Lincoln Crown Court in August 2023.

He has a history of mental illness and was not receiving the proper medication for a schizo affected disorder when he carried out all his new offences. 

The Judge made a seven year restraining order banning any further contact with the victim or her new partner. 

In the 2019 case, Foster was jailed for four years for holding a gun to the head of the owner of the Lyncroft Stores in Landkey, Barnstaple, in a raid in which he stole £105, 1,085 euros and £600 worth of stamps.