A MAN who was banned from contacting his estranged wife after the breakdown of their 20-year marriage breached the order by going to her home on Valentine’s Day, a court has heard.

Stuart Blake was released from an eight-month jail sentence on January 18 and on February 14 was seen in the street outside his estranged wife Rachel’s home in Shakespeare Road, Ipswich, wearing a scarf over his mouth to disguise himself, Ipswich Crown Court was told.

Shortly afterwards Blake, 44, knocked at the door and was arrested after his wife called the police.

Blake, who was living in Crescent Road, Ipswich, but more recently has been living in Middlesbrough, admitted breaching a restraining order and was given a six-month prison sentence suspended for two years.

He was also placed under the supervision of the probation service for two years and ordered to attend a domestic abuse requirement.

Sentencing Blake, Recorder Christopher Morgan extended the restraining order until September 2015 and warned him that if he breached it again it was likely he would be jailed.

The court heard that in November last year Blake was jailed for eight months for breaching the restraining order by going to his wife’s home in September within two days of being released from a 12-week prison sentence imposed on September 3 last year for harassing his wife.

On that occasion he had shoulder-barged the front door when she wouldn’t let him in and had then tried the handle of the back door.

Steven Dyble, for Blake, said his client had been with his wife for 20 years and had found it hard to deal with the end of the relationship.

He said that on occasions when Blake had been drinking during their marriage he had been verbally abusive to his wife but had not physically assaulted her.