Drunk man waved knife around in city street

SUSPENDED JAIL TERM FOR THREATENING BEHAVIOUR

A DRUNK man was arrested after he was spotted waving a kitchen knife around and trying to get into a vehicle in Leicester’s Narborough Road last month, a court heard.

Mark Batchelor, 43, was standing in the street pulling at the door hands of the stationary Toyota Yaris when two other people in a car pulled up behind.

The two men watched as Batchelor shouted at the occupants of the Toyota, which drove away, before turning his attention to them. They also drove off and called police to the scene.

Batchelor, of Norfolk Walk, Leicester, appeared before magistrates to plead guilty to charges of having a knife in public and using threatening behaviour.

Prosecutor Sally Bedford told the court the incident happened at about 11.20pm on April 28.

Describing what the two friends saw as they pulled up behind the Toyota, she told the hearing at Leicester Magistrates’ Court: “They had been driving into Leicester along Narborough Road and as they stopped at the junction with Hinckley Road they saw the defendant at the side of the road and realised he had a knife in his hand.

“He was switching it back and forth between his hands. He was seen to approach a Toyota and try the door.

“The defendant appeared to be saying, ‘What are you looking at?’ He was trying to open the doors multiple times.

“The Yaris went on down Narborough Road and the defendant turned his attention to them. He waved the knife at head height in full view of those two witnesses. The defendant then went to get onto a mountain bike.”

She said the police were called and found the defendant still with the knife.

Batchelor was described as having “a long list of convictions” but nothing involving carrying knives and no court appearances since 2008.

Rashpal Singh, representing Batchelor, told the court his client had fallen off his bike and struggled to pick up the knife, and then saw the people in the Toyota, whom he thought he knew.

Mr Singh said: “Whether he knew that person or not is not clear. The witnesses then see him making gestures. He accepts that if you see someone with a knife it’s bound to cause alarm.”

He said that his client had been drunk and that his state had been made worse by medication he was taking.

Batchelor, who is unemployed, was given a four-month sentence, suspended for 18 months.

He will also have to spend 20 days working with the probation service and pay £85 court costs and a £128 victim surcharge.

The chairman of the bench told him: “We are going to be suspending the sentence – you aren’t going to prison today but you came close.”