A VIOLENT domestic abuser has been banned from having any contact with his former partner and two children until the summer of 2024 after committing a series of assaults over the past six years.

James Hay admitted seizing and pulling his victim by the hair at a property in West Street in Whitecrook some time between January and December of 2013.

The 33-year-old also committed a similar assault, in which he again grabbed the woman by the hair, causing her to fall to the ground, and repeatedly kicked her on the head, during March 2014.

Two months later, he entered the same West Street property uninvited and pushed and pulled the same woman by the hair.

And in September 2017, at a property in the Thornliebank area of Glasgow, he left the same woman, and two children, fearful and alarmed after he shouted, swore and challenged another man to fight.

After a year without any further offending, Hay was back in trouble in October of last year, when he hurled abuse towards three different women after a “road rage” incident in Drumry.

He chased one of the women towards the vehicle in Hood Street on October 22, ran towards the vehicle and repeatedly punched one of the windows while the three women were inside.

Hay then got behind the wheel himself and pursued the same vehicle, driving dangerously, erratically and at excessive speed before deliberately colliding with it and trapping it against a kerb.

Yet, Hay’s offending still wasn’t over: in the days after the Hood Street incident, he appeared in court and was released on bail under a series of special conditions, which he then broke on January 11 this year by being in the Clydebank area and approaching another former partner at the Glenhead Social Club in Farm Road, Duntocher.

At the time of the January incidents Hay was in fact subject to restrictions imposed on no fewer than three bail orders - one imposed at Dumbarton Sheriff Court on October 25, and two imposed at the sheriff court in Dumfries, on October 26 and November 22.

And he breached a further special condition of one of those bail orders by being outwith his then bail address, at Ashgill Road in Glasgow, and failing to answer the door to police, at 7.05pm on January 11.

A background report on Hay by social workers was provided to Dumbarton Sheriff Court prior to Hay’s appearance in the dock before Sheriff William Gallacher on Friday - where the sheriff admitted he was “encouraged” by what he had read.

Hay’s solicitor, Jason Beltrami, said his client would have “no difficulty” with a non-harassment order banning him from contacting his ex from the 2013, 2014 and 2017 offences.

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Sheriff Gallacher put Hay, who is now living in the Hamilton area, under social workers’ supervision for two years. On the dangerous driving charge in Hood Street last October, he was also banned for a year and ordered to undertake a specific programme for road traffic offenders available in the South Lanarkshire area.

On the domestic violence matters, Hay was also ordered to complete the Caledonian Project, a programme set up to address the violent behaviour of domestic abusers.

The Crown’s motion for a non-harassment order was granted; Sheriff Gallacher said it would apply to Hay’s ex, the two children and to the address in Thornliebank where the 2017 incident took place, for a period of five years.