Ex-boyfriend's chilling threat: I can break every bone in your neck

A man has been sentenced for threatening his girlfriend. Stock image / Thinkstock

"The average police response time is four minutes. Do you know what I can do to you in four minutes? I can break every bone in your neck."

Liam Michael Udy's girlfriend was in the middle of Googling the Whanganui Police Station's phone number when Udy uttered the threat.

The pair had been arguing at the victim's house on May 22 because Udy wanted her to remove a male friend from her Facebook friends' list. The victim said the friend was a relative, and brought up that Udy himself had been contacting other women two weeks earlier.

The victim asked him to leave more than once as he verbally abused her. He refused to leave, and the victim began looking up the police station number.

When Udy threatened her, she stopped trying to contact police and instead tried to "keep things normal", police prosecutor Sergeant Rachel Willemsen told Whanganui District Court last week.

Udy stayed the night and left in the morning. Several days later, his victim laid the complaint.

Udy pleaded guilty to threatening to kill or cause grievous bodily harm.

He told police he knew he shouldn't have said what he did, but he didn't mean it, Ms Willemsen said.

The victim, who is no longer with Udy, asked for a protection order to be made.

Defence lawyer Anna Brosnahan pointed out the complaint was made on May 26 and Udy had been invited back for dinner in between the two dates.

"He accepts that his comments would have been extremely frightening," she said.

Ms Brosnahan said Udy had plans to become a teacher.

"Whether this interferes with that is a matter for another day," she said.

Judge David Cameron said the victim impact statement spoke of a "controlling" person.

Judge Cameron described the offending as a "nasty incident" and sentenced Udy to 80 hours of community work with six months of supervision. He also made a protection order in favour of the victim.