A PENDLE man was given a suspended sentence of six weeks in prison after pleading guilty to sending racially-aggravated messages to a young mother.

At Skipton Magistrates Court, Ashley Carroll, 26, admitted sending three offensive Facebook messages to the mixed-race woman.

He will also be subject to a weekend night-time curfew for eight weeks, between 8pm and 6am, after magistrates heard he worked in London in the week.

Carroll, of Clarence Street, Barnoldswick, messaged the woman following an altercation in Aireville Park, Skipton, between her, his sister and his mother, which had then escalated onto social media. In his three messages, sent on June 12, he was offensive and used racist language, the court heard.

Prosecuting, Martin Butterworth, said when questioned by police Carroll admitted sending the messages, but was unaware the language was racist.

The woman, in a victim statement, said she had experienced such language before and found it very upsetting and was now scared to leave her home.

Carroll, the court heard, was very close to his family and felt very protective of them.

In mitigation, Scott McLaughlin, said Carroll’s younger brother, one of twins, had recently committed suicide, and that he was also still mourning the fairly recent death of his father.

“He had a heightened sense of trying to defend his family, he wanted to protect his mother and sisters,” he said.

Mr McLaughlin added he was a hard-working, self-employed man who had been in a stable relationship for some time.

The court heard that Carroll had been subject to a community order at the time and was previously convicted for a racially aggravated public order offence.

He currently had more than 139 hours of 200 hours’ unpaid work left to do and had been in breach of it once, for which he received an extra 10 hours.

Magistrates told Carroll they were not impressed with his non compliance with the probation service and warned him he had narrowly avoided an immediate prison sentence.

He was sentenced to four weeks for the offence, plus an extra two weeks for it being racially aggravated.

He will also have to pay £115 surcharge and £85 costs.