A MAN who threatened to cause damage to his former partner’s home sent her a text saying “answer or we have Derrick Bird back” – referring to the Cumbria shooting tragedy in which a dozen people lost their lives.

Alan Brennan, 67, had already threatened to burn down Ingrid Dermott’s house and later when she returned to her home, there was a strong smell of petrol at the front door and the carpet was wet.

Brennan, of Elm Drive, Mold, admitted two charges of threaten to commit damage and then committing damage on June 8.

District Judge Andrew Shaw, sitting at Flintshire Magistrates’ Court yesterday, remanded him in custody and committed him for sentence to the crown court.

Brennan, said to have a brain injury, asked to be bailed because he did not want to lose his accommodation.

Prosecutor Christine O’Kane said Ingrid Dermott had been in a relationship with Brennan but it ended in May.

But later at the home of a friend he saw her, there was an argument, and he threatened to burn her house.

“I’ll show you how it’s done in Liverpool. I will burn your house down,” he said.

Then on June 8 she saw him in the town centre, they chatted and in conversation he became upset.

During the evening she received text messages from him which she took to be threatening.

One said: “Do yourself a favour, last time I speak to you, answer or we have Derrick Bird back.”

When she returned home there was a very strong smell of petrol as she walked up the path and the hall carpet was wet and stained.

Fiona Larking, defending, said Brennan admitted pouring petrol outside but not through the letter box. He would not have carried out any threat and she said that he had no intention of harming her.

Brennan suffered a brain injury in 1999 and he found it difficult to walk unaided, although he had a normal level of functioning.

The Mold court heard he had been jailed for five years in 2004 for wounding with intent following an incident with a knife on a former partner.