A man has been jailed after sending threatening messages so “harrowing” that a family was forced to evacuate their home.
Charley Mills also drove on the wrong side of the road and collided head-on with another car whilst on bail for the offence.
The 30-year-old pleaded guilty to domestic abuse, two common assaults, malicious damage and a telecommunications offence at the Magistrate’s Court.
He appeared in the Royal Court yesterday to be sentenced.
Mills was told that prison was inevitable because he had “hurt too many people”.
The court heard that Mills had committed 32 previous offences and had only just been released from prison when he began making abusive and threatening comments towards his female victim – both by speaking to her and sending messages.
He also assaulted the woman and spat in the face of the her friend as she went to help her.
Crown Advocate Lauren Hallam, prosecuting, said Mills also made threats to the woman’s father.
She said that Mills sent messages to the woman stating he was on his way to her house in the early hours of the morning of 28 July last year.
Police officers drove the entire family away from the property to police headquarters for safety.
Mills turned up at the house after they had left, and was arrested when he returned to his own home.
The contents of the messages were not read out in court but Lieutenant Bailiff Anthony Olsen said they made “harrowing reading”.
Advocate Hallam added that on the afternoon of 31 January – while out on bail – Mills had driven on the wrong side of the road up Beaumont Hill, sped round a blind bend and crashed into a wall.
His car bounced off the wall and collided head-on with another car. The passengers in the other car, a woman and a teenage girl, were uninjured.
A roadside breath test showed that Mills was over the legal alcohol limit at the time.
But at police headquarters he refused to give another breath sample and became aggressive and uncooperative, assaulting a member of staff.
The Crown Advocate recommended a 12-month jail sentence for the driving offences and a further 18 months for the abuse, making a total of two years and six months.
Advocate Julia-Anne Dix, defending, accepted the sentence for the driving offences but argued that the others could be dealt with by community service and probation orders.
She said Mills had suffered a brain injury at the age of 14 and it had affected his thinking ever since.
He had been released from prison in March 2024, but Advocate Dix said: “Within one month he had slipped back into his old habit of using alcohol as a coping mechanism.”
She added that he was “consumed by guilt”, saying: “Mr Mills is utterly ashamed by what he wrote. The messages indicate that the sender was not a well man at the time.”
He was deemed at high risk of reconviction and the Lieutenant Bailiff said a custodial sentence was inevitable, telling Mills: “You have hurt too many people. You have put too many people in fear of you.”
In addition to the two-year prison sentence, Mills was banned from driving for three years and must retake the driving test if he wants to drive again.
He was also ordered to pay the woman £125 in compensation.
Jurats Christensen and Opferman were sitting.
Following the sentencing, DC Jenny Docherty from the States of Jersey Police said: “The victim in the case suffered considerably at the hands of her abuser, Mills.
“I want to commend her for having the strength to report her abuse and for working with the police to bring him to justice.
“Domestic abuse is much more than physical violence.
“This case is an example of the damaging impact of the emotional and psychological abuse that so many victims endure.”
