Student, 18, with 'vicious weapon’ in police scuffle

‘Plainly intelligent’ teenager who grew up with gang violence jailed

AN ACCOUNTING and finance student was caught in the street with a ‘vicious’ machete for protection before he attempted to fight off a police officer.

Londoner Dwaine OwareDarkwah, 18, was jailed at Portsmouth Crown Court for the offences after being given a reprieve from incarceration just months earlier after being found with a knife and a prohibited weapon.

The ‘plainly intelligent’ teenager grew up in a world of gang violence in Greenwich where he was robbed and threatened before wanting to better himself.

Oware-Darkwah secured a place at the University of Portsmouth – but the dark ways of his upbringing had already reared their head when he was found with weapons in a public place.

He was given an opportunity to curb his ways after being spared jail in May last year for those offences – with him handed a four-month suspended sentence and given an electronic curfew.

Yet despite being granted his liberty, Oware-Darkwah, living at the Catherine House student block on Stanhope Road, found himself falling foul of the law on November 5 in the city centre.

The defendant, whose parents were present in court, was found with a large machete with one side featuring a ‘long serrated edge’, a curved blade and sharp point.

‘You are plainly someone of intelligence as you are attending a university course in accounting and finance,’ judge Roger Hetherington said.

‘You would have understood from your previous suspended sentence that if you commit any further offences, especially those similar to the ones on that sentence, there would be an overwhelming likelihood it would be activated along with sentencing for the new offences. Yet you were found to be a person in possession of a vicious weapon.’

He then jailed OwareDarkwah, who admitted possession of a machete and resisting arrest, for nine months.