A former vicar with a history of violence walked free from court again yesterday – this time for threatening to kill his estranged wife.

Christopher Walker, 57, has previously faced court for attacking his wife Rachel and his elderly mother Daphne. And yesterday it emerged he had also been cautioned for assaulting his young son.

The former vicar of St Mary’s Church, in Barton, Oxford, admitted at Oxford Magistrates’ Court yesterday making a menacing phone call to Mrs Walker after an argument about their marriage.

Deputy District Judge Mark Jabbitt was told Walker threatened to kill his estranged wife after becoming angry when he called to speak to his children.

Sally Thomson, prosecuting, said Mrs Walker hung up but her husband tried to call back 10 times over the next two hours.

Ms Thomson said: “She mentioned to him about completing a domestic violence course and that made him aggressive.

“She said not to take it for granted he could come back into the family.

“He said, ‘If that is the case, I am going to kill you’.”

Walker was on bail at the time after being arrested for grabbing his 87-year-old mother Daphne during a half-hour drunken rant about the “injustices” in his life.

Walker, who is currently living with a friend in Essex, also ignored his bail conditions when he attacked his wife last June despite being banned from the family home because of an earlier assault.

He was jailed for 26 weeks last summer after admitting repeatedly kicking her in the face in a drunken rage.

Two weeks ago he was given a four-month sentence, suspended for two years, at Reading Magistrates’ Court for the attack on his mother.

Walker, who gives his address as St Michael’s Vicarage, in Faringdon Road, Abingdon, admitted sending a menacing message.

Catherine McMaster, defen-ding, said: “It was not an act of malice, it was one of frustration. Mr Walker is extremely in need and requesting help.”

Walker, who is also a former Rector of St John the Baptist Church, in South Moreton, said he had started drinking after being with diagnosed with leukaemia in 2003.

In 2005 he was convicted of perjury in the trial of an undertaker who had given a grieving family the wrong ashes.

He was given community service and ordered to pay £1,500 in court costs.

Today, Judge Jabbitt extended Walker’s suspended sentence for a further two months and ordered him to continue attending domestic violence and alcohol treatment programmes. He also ordered him to pay £60 costs.

He said: “Anyone who has been told about you has considerable concerns about your behaviour, particularly when you drink too much and your actions towards people you are close to, or have been close to.

“No court in the future will be this lenient.

“This is the last chance.”