Nathan Page, 43, of Rozel Road, St Peter Port, admitted using threatening behaviour towards another on a St Peter Port housing estate.
The complainant had been subject to previous incidents involving the defendant.
The court was told that the man, who was a builder, had been working on the estate with a colleague. When the colleague drove on to the estate at about 9.30am he saw the defendant driving out, and he seemed to be paying a lot of attention to the sign on the other man’s van. The complainant arrived a short time after and joined his colleague on the roof of the property where they were working. At about 10.30am the defendant drove back in to the estate.
He asked the complainant to confirm who he was and then said he wanted a word with him. The complainant started to come down off the roof but while he was doing that Page when to his vehicle and took out what appeared to be a baseball bat wrapped in something. The complainant then decided not to come down the ladder as he feared for his own safety.
A witness came out from another property and told Page to stop what he was doing.
Page remained fixated on the other man, the court heard, and told him that he was good at ruining other people’s lives, so now he was going to ruin his. The neighbour called the police and Page was arrested at 11.09am. A long postal tube was found during a search of his vehicle but there was no baseball bat. Page gave no comment responses to questions in interview.
In a victim impact statement, the complainant said the incident had left him in shock and he felt his life was at risk. He had felt forced to install security measures at his home.
Defending, Advocate Chris Green said his client had similar matters on his record but not for some time. His guilty plea had been entered on the basis that the complainant would have felt threatened by his behaviour and could have thought that the cardboard postal tube was a baseball bat.
He said he had not wielded the item. He denied returning to the vehicle to get it and said he had had it with him from the start. His client’s partner lived on that estate and he had not gone there looking for the other man.
Judge Gary Perry said he had been given no reason why the incident had happened in the first place. Advocate Green said it was connected to a matter involving one of his client’s family members.
Judge Perry said he rejected as totally unrealistic Page's contention that he just happened to have the item with him.
‘You took it to frighten someone and it did frighten them,’ he said.
It was only the fact that the defendant had stayed out of trouble since his release from prison in 2019 that had prevented him from going back there, he said.
Page was ordered to perform 100 hours of community service as a direct alternative to two months in prison. A restraining order was imposed for one year.