A CONVICTED stalker jailed last year for threatening an ex-girlfriend with an acid attack has been locked up again after telling his latest partner he'd torch her house with her children inside.

James McEwan made the appalling threat twice in separate phone calls to the pregnant woman last Friday.

His chilling warning came after she told him that she wanted to have a break in their seven-month relationship.

McEwan, 31, of Port Glasgow, seethed: "I'm going to burn your house down with you and your weans in it."

He is today beginning an eight-month prison sentence after admitting his guilt.

Prosecutor Pamela Brady told Greenock Sheriff Court: "The complainer had been in a relationship with the accused for seven months and is pregnant with his child.

"The call was terminated, however, there was another call within ten minutes and the exact same threat was made by the accused.

"The complainer called the police and officers arrived to find her visibly shaken."

The court heard that McEwan, of the Port's Rannoch Gardens on Parkhill Avenue, had initially threatened to self harm unless the woman resumed the relationship with him.

He was jailed in March last year after terrorising his other ex-partner during a campaign of hate-filled abuse — even threatening to hack off her breasts with a sword if she met anyone else.

McEwan also posted a series of 17 intimate pictures of the woman on three social media platforms and left her fearing for her life after she ended their 11-month relationship.

His course of intimidating conduct, which ran from May until August in 2017 was described in court as 'relentless'.

Following his latest offence, he stated to police who arrived at his house to arrest him: "Are you here 'cos I said I would burn her house down?"

Defence lawyer Edel McGinty said: "Mr McEwan does have difficulties in relation to his mental health.

"He made empty threats to obtain the complainer's attention.

"I am not suggesting that logic even entered this, but it is the path that Mr McEwan goes down."

Sheriff Linda Smith told McEwan: "This is a very serious crime that you have pleaded guilty to.

"Unfortunately for you, it is a pattern of offending."