AFTER seeing his new girlfriend with her new partner a man drew a knife he had just bought.

Pleading guilty to the offence of being in possession of an offensive weapon in a public space on May 5, 25-year-old Stephen Moore of Tudor Crescent, was told by magistrates that they didn’t feel their powers of sentence were sufficient enough to deal with him.

The magistrates heard from crown prosecutor Pauline Lambert that police had attended the scene amid reports of a man with a knife on Carfax Street at around 6.30pm.

Upon arrival they found a woman holding the knife who said that it had been used to threaten her by the defendant but she had managed to get it from him.

Moore was arrested and in interview he told police he had been drinking and was tipsy. He said he had been threatened by his ex-girlfriend’s new partner and he had used the knife to defend himself.

Defending Moore, Ben Worthington said his client had a number of mental health issues and explained that he had bought the knife to aid his construction of fantasy-world models, which he was quite accomplished at doing.

“He has suffered from very severe epilepsy for the last 20 years – it is so severe he fits several times a day and has seven to eight fits a night,” he said.

“He deeply regrets what happened and is very sorry for that.”

Mr Worthington said that a previous conviction for possession of a bladed article had come about after he had intended to harm himself, and not a member of the public.

But hearing that this was his second offence involving a knife in a public place the magistrates said they were bound by new legislation that orders second time offenders be faced with a minimum six-month jail term. Chairman of the bench Christine Smith therefore told him he would be sentenced at the crown court.

In the meantime he was released on conditional bail not to enter an area defined on a map, apart from travelling through by bus.