Neighbour from hell Richard Gant is behind bars after months of torment.

And the final straw for residents in a Skelmanthorpe street was when Gant threatened to blow up a neighbour.

Leeds Crown Court heard Charlotte Smith was the target of Gant’s threats on October 18 and had already called the gas board because of the smell coming from his home in Elm Street.

When the gasman arrived he heard Gant clicking a lighter inside his home and he then came out and threatened “I’ll blow all of you up.”

Gant, 54, admitted threatening to destroy or damage property. Jailing him, Judge Christopher Batty said Ms Smith was a neighbour.

“To describe her as long suffering would be an understatement. She had to put up over a number of months with your anti-social behaviour, be it playing loud music at unsociable hours as early as 6am or you walking up and down the street in the middle of the night shouting.

“She recorded 14 incidents between June 5 and August 14."

The judge said Gant’s behaviour had taken a more worrying turn with Gant making threats to bomb her property, threatening to burn it and to kill her.

Judge Batty said Gant had been made the subject of an anti-social behaviour order but breached it no fewer than 10 times. He had told another neighbour he would burn her out of her home. He had told her she was a witch “and they burn witches.”

Judge Batty said the implication of Gant’s explanation was that he thought she deserved it. Gant interposed “Well she did ye.”

A psychiatrist had concluded Gant was not suffering from a mental disorder. He said it appeared it was something he did to upset those “against whom he had a grievance.”

Gant was jailed for two years and the judge also imposed a Criminal Behaviour Order for five years barring Gant from entering Elm Street or Lodge Street, Skelmanthorpe, making any noise in his home address which was audible from the outside likely to cause harassment alarm or distress to others and barring him from contacting Charlotte Smith or Thomas Lockwood.

CRIMINAL PAST

In 2010, Gant was Tasered by police officers while carrying an imitation gun outside his house.

In 2011 he was given a two-year Asbo for playing loud music, banging on walls and shouting abuse at his neighbours through a wall linking the semi-detached houses.

In March 2012, Gant was handed a suspended prison sentence for threatening to kill a neighbour and burn her out of her home.

In December last year, magistrates jailed him for 16 weeks for further Asbo breaches.

And in June 2013 he was in court again - for playing a harmonica in the early hours in his garden