A former parish councillor jailed for stalking a woman has appeared in court after sending her a letter from prison.

Christopher Gray pleaded guilty to breaching a restraining order imposed in December 2025 at Leicester Magistrates Court last Tuesday (September 29).

The order prohibited the 52-year-old from directly or indirectly contacting the woman and banned entry to certain addresses.

Court heard that Gray sent the woman a letter from HMP Leicester on April 9.

Gray was originally given a four-week sentence, suspended for six months, on January 26 after pleading guilty to stalking charges and breaching the restraining order for the first time.

Due to this conviction, councillors at Waltham on the Wolds and Thorpe Arnold Parish Council disqualified him from his seat under section 80 of the Local Government Act 1972.

Gray was remanded in custody after further offences in March, when he is said to have made contact with the woman at Burton Lazars Village Hall, south of Melton Mowbray.

For these offences, he was charged with stalking and further breaches of the restraining order. He was given a total custodial period of 30 weeks imprisonment at a hearing on April 14.

Prosecutors said the letter he sent from prison started: "I am so upset at being in here. I don't know why I am here and I have done nothing wrong. Coming to see you is not the crime of the century.

"Unfortunately, rather than magistrates, I had a district judge at court. He's apparently not all lenient."

Gray's lawyer, Mr Middleton, said there was nothing in the letter to cause "harassment, alarm or distress", other than in receiving the letter itself.

Mr Middleton outlined that a restraining order and stalking protection order – a civil document which had been put to the court in the last 10 days – would both be active until December 2028.

He said: "There has to come a point where the defendant learns his lesson and the court puts him on the metal to test him. The answer is not to keep him incarcerated indefinitely."

Attending the hearing, probation services told the court they had a "very high level of concern" about the defendant's "ongoing behaviour" toward the victim.

Gray was handed a four-week jail term to run concurrently with the 30-week sentence he is currently serving.

He was also ordered to pay a £154 victim surcharge.

Chief magistrate Navvir Vandesha said: "We do believe you are a high risk to the same complainant."