A man with a dangerous obsession about railways has been jailed after he went to a mainline station with the intention of throwing a member of staff under a moving train.

Robin Woodard was arrested twice within the space of 24 hours at Exeter St David's station where he told police that he wanted to kill a woman who worked there.

He had a grudge against the woman because she had prevented him sitting on the track on a previous occasion and claimed she 'had the devil in her head' and had to die.

In phone calls before each visit to the station he said he wanted to grab the female member of staff and drag her under the wheels of a train with him so they would both be killed.

Woodard, aged 53, suffers from a complex personality disorder but has refused treatment and was assessed as highly dangerous by a psychiatrist.

He had been banned from going to the station by a restraining order just four months earlier when he was jailed for repeatedly trespassing on the railway, causing serious disruption to the main Paddington to Penzance line.

He broke the order by going to the station and jumping off the platform next to a stationary train at 11.40 pm on June 3 last year. He was arrested and taken to hospital for a mental health assessment but released the next day.

He went straight back to the station where he was arrested again at 10pm on June 4 after barging into a male train dispatcher on an otherwise empty platform.

Woodard, formerly of Seabrook, Topsham, but now homeless, denied two breaches of a restraining order but was convicted by a jury at Exeter Crown Court at a trial in February.

After his conviction, he pointed at Judge Robert Linford and shouted: "I'm going to kill you, you c***. You're f***ing dead, you're f***ing dead".

Judge Linford jailed him for a total of four and a half years but said he was not adding to his sentence because of the outburst.

He told him: "The psychiatric report disclosed that you have ongoing homicidal thoughts about female members of staff at Exeter St David's station which should not be dismissed as idle fantasies and should be taken seriously.

"In my judgement, you are an extremely dangerous man. These breaches were very serious because the potential for harm as indicated by you could not have been higher, it was indeed the death of another human being.

"If there had been a female member of staff at the station, you would have pushed her onto the track. It was avoided by pure chance alone. All the court can do is to pass a sentence designed to protect the public."

The judge extended the restraining order for a further five years and urged that stringent licence conditions are imposed when he is released from jail.

The jury at the trial in February were played two chilling 999 calls which he made before each visit to the station.

He claimed that a woman working there 'had the devil in her head' and had prevented him killing himself on the line in the past. He told the operator he could hear the voice of his stepfather in his head telling him to go to the station.

He said: "I have got to go, he has told me to go to St David's. I've got to drag a female member of Great Western Railway staff off the platform and drag her onto the rail line and hold her down and kill the woman.

"I have got a body bag for the body parts when the train kills her. I'll be on top and I'll die too. I'm going to take and kill the girl. She has got the devil in her head. I've got to kill her now."

In the second call he said: "I have got the devil in my head. The only way to get the devil out of my head is if I take my head off on the railway.

"The lady from GWR got me off the rail. She has got the devil in her head. I have got to kill her. I've got the body bag. She has got to die. It is the only way to get the devil out of my head and get the devil out of her head."

Woodard did not give evidence and claimed the man who was arrested at the station wasn't him, even though he was clearly identified on CCTV and has been in custody ever since being arrested for the second time.

Miss Hollie Gilbery, defending, asked the judge to consider the psychiatric report and the effect which Woodard's mental difficulties had on his actions.