Reveller pulled knife on man then went on the run

JON MACPHERSON

ANIGHTCLUB reveller ‘inexplicably’ threatened a man in the street with a knife before going on the run from police for 10 months, a court heard.

Jonathan Michael Holmes approached victim Jamie Ward from behind on Willow Street in Accrington town centre in the early hours of July 16 last year before pulling out a five-inch bladed folding knife.

When Mr Ward ran off and returned to the scene with police Holmes fled along Birch Street and discarded the knife before being detained.

Burnley Crown Court heard how he was later released on bail but failed to surrender to officers in August 2016.

He wasn’t caught until June 7 this year when he voluntarily handed himself into police after being made redundant from his factory job in Rochdale.

Holmes, 22, of no fixed abode, pleaded guilty to threatening a person with a bladed article, failing to surrender into custody having been released on bail and all while subject to a suspended sentence order.

He was given a fiveweek jail sentence for the bail offence and breaching the suspended sen- tence, however the court was told he had already served that while on remand.

Judge Sara Dodd also imposed a separate 144day prison sentence, suspended for 18 months, with 80 hours unpaid work and 25 rehabilitation activity requirement days for the knife offence.

Emma Kehoe, prosecuting, told the court how Holmes confronted Mr Ward in the street ‘for no particular reason’ and then started ‘slashing the knife around’ in front of him which caused a cut to the victim’s jacket.

When police arrived at the scene a group of people were heard shouting ‘knife, knife’ and Holmes fled before being arrested by pursuing police.

Nicholas Dearing, defending, said Holmes is a ‘young man who has no previous convictions for violence’, expresses ‘genuine remorse’ and that ‘there was no need to escalate the situation by producing a knife’.

He told the court that Holmes didn’t surrender to police from his bail because he was ‘scared about facing the repercussions and fled after that’. The court heard that he moved to Rochdale and found a job, but when he was made redundant he ‘came back and handed himself in’.

Judge Dodd said Holmes ‘inexplicably produced the knife.