Jailing Adair, the judge told him the voice notes he sent his ex were “vile, abhorrent and frankly, quite distressing”
Jailing David Desmond Adair at Coleraine Magistrates Court, District Judge Peter King declined an invitation to listen to the voice note recordings because having dealt with the case when the 42-year-old first appeared in May, he remembered the “very striking” threats.
Jailing Adair, the judge told him the voice notes he sent his ex were “vile, abhorrent and frankly, quite distressing.”
Appearing at court from HMP Maghaberry, Adair, from The Crescent in Coleraine, entered guilty pleas to making a threat to kill his ex-partner and a further offence of domestic abuse committed on 8 May this year.
In a separate case, Adair also admitted breaching a non-molestation order by contacting his ex-wife between April and May.
David Desmond Adair
News in 90 seconds – 11th August 2025
Taking the May offences first, a prosecuting lawyer told the court it was just after 1:30pm when Adair’s ex-partner was at the rear of her business premises when the defendant shouted at her “take this as a threat – I’m going to kill you.”
That evening, she received a number of voice notes where Adair threatened: “Tonight you are done, you are done, I’m going to burn everything you own, including you – I’m going to melt you like a candle you dirty b******. You are f***** now. It’s going to take more than the police to stop me, you dirty, stinking, unwashed b******. I’m going to take you out.”
Turning to the offence Adair committed against his ex-wife, the court heard how he sent her text messages in breach of a non-molestation order, referring to her current partner and a link to a post about parental alienation.
She told police the unwanted contact “made her feel distressed, harassed and annoyed.”
Defence counsel Thomas McKeever told the court Adair’s ten-year marriage had broken down and the texts were a sign of the “frustration that he could not see his children.”
“He has taken time to reflect in custody and he knows now that he needs to go through his solicitor,” the barrister said.
Conceding that the threatening voice notes were the most serious offences, Mr McKeever said it was clear they had been “abhorrent and inexcusable” but they had been sent in a context where his ex “had threatened the defendant with paramilitaries.”
“The thing that he should have done was to tell the police,” he told the court, emphasising that Adair “won’t be speaking to her ever again.”
“The headline offence is clearly the threat to kill,” Judge King told the court, declaring that “domestic violence is a scourge in our society.”
He told Adair the sentence would have been five months but because of the domestic abuse aggravator, he was increasing it to seven months.
In addition, he also imposed a restraining order in favour of the victim “until further order of the court.”