A DUNFERMLINE man has been placed on a tag after breaking his bail by repeatedly contacting his former partner.

Darren Taylor, 22, of Broomhead Drive, appeared in the dock at Dunfermline Sheriff Court.

He previously admitted that having been granted bail on December 3 on the condition that he did not contact his ex-partner, he did on December 16 fail without reasonable excuse to comply in that he repeatedly contacted the woman.

The court heard that the couple had been in a relationship for some two years but had split up prior to an incident between them.

Taylor was told not to contact his ex-partner in "any way", depute fiscal Azrah Yousaf said.

However, at around 8.15pm on December 16, the complainer received a Facebook message from a friend of Taylor saying "f*** off".

This caused suspicion and the woman suspected that it was the accused that had messaged so relayed that in her response.

She then received a message that threatened to contact social work so that they would take her child.

It said: "Will have your boy taken off you faster than a flash of a screenshot."

She was upset by this and blocked the friend's Facebook account.

She then started to receive text messages from the same friend's mobile number believing the messages were coming from the accused.

These continued through the evening which caused the complainer to contact the police.

Police attended at the complainer's address and while they were there she started getting more messages from the same number and a phone call.

The police answered and recognised Taylor's voice from previous dealings and he was told to stop phoning his ex-partner.

He was traced later.

Defence solicitor Roshni Joshi explained there was more to the story and said that after the couple split, the complainer had been in contact with Taylor for a significant amount of time.

"The response was part of a conversation against a lot of difficulty with the complainer," Ms Joshi said.

"The parties have a one-year-old child together and he has not had contact with him for an amount of time.

"The complainer has got in touch with him on numerous occasions and has been hostile and that includes not attending court.

"He is at college and addressing his substance misuse.

"He understands if he wants contact with the child he will have to go through legal routes which he will undoubtedly do.

"He has never previously broken conditions of bail."

Sheriff Charles Macnair said: "I am told that you accept responsibility for this but you still seem to be blaming the victim of this offence."

He placed Taylor on a restriction of liberty order for 190 days whereby he will have to stay within his property during the hours of 7pm-7am.