A COMINS Coch man who breached a restraining order by phoning his ex-girlfriend five times in a night claimed he had accidentally dialled the number in his pocket whilst on a date with another woman.

Dean Martin Davies, 26, had denied breaching a restraining order stopping him from contacting Maihanna Murphy, but was found guilty after a trial when magistrates said they didn’t believe his claim that the number had been dialled accidentally while his phone was in his pocket.

Prosecutor Rhian Jones said Davies, of 67 Brongwinau, had been made subject to the restraining order just two weeks before the five phone calls, from a withheld number, to Miss Murphy were made overnight on 28 October and into 29 October.

She said Miss Murphy had ignored the first call shortly before midnight, but answered a second call and heard “intense breathing”, which Miss Murphy thought was Davies.

Miss Murphy hung up but received two more calls shortly after and ignored them both.

She then put her phone on airplane mode, but police checks later showed that she had missed a fifth call at around 12.30am.

Police checks showed the phone that made the calls was registered to Davies’ address.

But he told police that he had been on a date that evening and that if any calls had been made it must have been an accident while his phone was in his pocket as her number was still listed in his ‘favourites’ on his phone.

He insisted that he had not wanted to speak to Miss Murphy and had moved on, but after putting that forward at his trial it was rejected by magistrates.

The court heard that Davies is on a community order after he was convicted of harassment of Miss Murphy and that he was making good progress on that order and is addressing alcohol issues.

Defence solicitor Alan Lewis said the calls were all of a short duration with no conversation or threats during the four or five second calls.

Mr Lewis said Davies was progressing well on the current order and backed a recommendation from the probation service that he should have a new community order to run alongside the current one.

Magistrates agreed with the probation service and imposed a new 12-month community order with 120 hours of unpaid work to run concurrently with the existing order.

Davies will also pay costs totalling £705.