A woman gave up her job at a restaurant and changed from being “bubbly and happy” to depressed and fearful after she was harassed by a married man, a court heard.

Miah Khan sent abusive text messages in which he threatened to kill the woman and blow her house up, Bradford Crown Court was told.

Khan also went to the restaurant where she waited tables, making a fuss and upsetting customers, and waited in his car outside the woman’s home.

Prosecutor John Topham told the court yesterday that the harassment came to a head on April 19 this year when Khan parked alongside her car in a Morrisons car park in Bradford.

She heard him shouting: “You slag. Come out of the car. I’ll beat you. I’m going to kill you.”

He got out of his car and threw a bottle of drink, which hit the driver’s window of her car. She drove off in fear to her parents’ house and the matter was reported to police.

Mr Topham said the owner of the restaurant where the victim worked said the defendant had frequently turned up asking for her and creating a scene and he had allowed her to leave by the back door halfway through her shift. Three weeks before the final incident, she had given up her job.

Mr Topham said that Khan, 27, who is married with two children, claimed he had had a sexual relationship with the woman, but she denied that and said it was a friendship.

Khan had made sexual advances towards her and asked her to marry him but she had told him she did not want to.

The police had given Khan a harassment warning, though no formal proceedings were taken.

The prosecutor said that, when interviewed by police, Khan blamed the woman because she did not go ahead with the marriage.

He denied he was going to carry out any of the threats.

Khan, of Pearson Street, Laisterdyke, Bradford, a self-employed auto electrician, had pleaded guilty to harassment, between March 26 and April 20 this year, by causing the woman to fear that violence would be used against her.

His barrister, Yunus Valli, said the offence was out of character and he now clearly accepted that the relationship with the victim, “whichever way you look at it,” was finished.

Judge Colin Burn told Khan: “The victim has had to find refuge to keep away from you, such is the fear you have instilled in her.”

But the judge said Khan had no previous convictions and, after spending 16 days in custody, the threat of prison would be sufficient to prevent him reoffending.

He gave Khan a nine-month prison sentence suspended for 18 months, with probation supervision and 100 hours’ unpaid community work.

He also imposed a five-year restraining order to prevent Khan contacting the woman, and other named people, at their homes or places of work.