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John Keenan, from Chatham, jailed for harassment of ex-partner

A spurned lover who waged a “sinister” campaign of harassment against his ex-partner had to be restrained in the dock after he refused to be taken to the cells.

British national John Keenan became angry when a judge flatly refused his request for deportation so he could serve his jail sentence in a foreign prison.

A female dock officer was unable to release his grip on the dock rail and a police officer and a security officer intervened. The 37-year-old construction worker was handcuffed before being taken forcibly to the cells.

John Keenan. Picture: Kent Police.
John Keenan. Picture: Kent Police.

Keenan, of Freshwater Road, Chatham, admitted harassment and having a blade when he turned up in the victim’s garden at night.

Jailing Keenan for 14 months and making a restraining order for eight years, Judge Julian Smith said: “Your perspective causes me concern. These are worrying offences. It is not fate, it is harassment. All these elements and that combination is sinister.”

Keenan, who represented himself, asked: “Can I be put in for deportation? Can I move countries today, because the justice in this country is terrible.

“It is a few love letters. It is diabolical. I am not going down.”

Maidstone Crown Court heard how, after their year-long relationship ended last year, Keenan broke a window in the victim’s Gillingham home.

"Can I be put in for deportation? Can I move countries today, because the justice in this country is terrible" - John Keenan

Prosecutor Keith Yardy said Keenan afterwards called her up to 30 times a day, sent multiple text messages and emails and waited outside her house. Keenan engineered situations to talk to her at a club and a job centre.

He was arrested in February and bailed with a condition not to contact the woman. But straight afterwards he sent a letter to her mother saying how much he loved her daughter.

Four more letters were sent to the victim’s home, some hand-delivered. He sent flowers and approached her as she got off a bus.

She then found him sitting in her back garden with a letter for her in a sports bag. Police arrested him and seized a Stanley knife from the bag.

Keenan had previously been jailed for the domestic abuse of another partner.

The case was heard at Maidstone Crown Court
The case was heard at Maidstone Crown Court

The victim said in a statement: “These issues with John have made me scared to leave the house. Every corner I go round I am scared he will be waiting. I am completely anxious.

“When he comes to my house I am terrified. I don’t know what he is capable of. I am concerned something bad will happen to me.

“His behaviour is not that of a normal man. I just want him to stop contacting my family and let me get on with my life.”

Representing himself because of his distrust of solicitors, Keenan insisted he was not a danger to anybody.

“I held my hands up,” he said. “It is no benefit for me to be in prison.

“I know I have broken the law. I wish no harm and I never will be any harm to any human being.

“I am no threat and I never will be.”

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