A BUILDER who was outside smoking in his dressing gown in the early hours of the morning drew a knife on two drunken nightclub revellers who he claimed were taunting him, a court heard this week.

Bradley Smith, 20, of Victoria Road, appeared before magistrates sitting in Swindon on Wednesday and pleaded guilty to two charges of threatening behaviour and one of possessing a knife in a public place.

Prosecuting, Pauline Lambert told the court that two friends had been out drinking at the Casbah nightclub in Swindon on September 8 and were by their own admission pretty drunk, having consumed nine or 10 pints of lager and a couple of shots of spirits each.

In a statement one of the men said they had been walking up Victoria Road at 3am and remember seeing a man, later identified as Smith, who seemed angry and the man thought he could have been taking drugs.

Smith was in a dressing gown and pulled a knife out of his pocket, waved it from side to side and walked towards the two revellers, the man said, adding: “We thought he was going to stab us.”

He added Smith’s behaviour was completely unprovoked but as he continued to shout at them he grabbed the knife from Smith and it fell to the ground, action from which he sustained cuts to his hand.

“The whole incident was over in a couple of minutes. None of it made sense,” Mrs Lambert told the court, adding that there was unclear CCTV footage of the incident but it showed Smith with something shiny in his hand and moving towards the two men.

Police found Smith in his dressing gown with twigs and plant foliage all over him, Mrs Lambert said. On arrest he said he had gone out for a smoke and had been chased down the road by three men.

Defending, Linda Holmes said Smith was an extremely presentable and hard-working builder. She said he was outside in his dressing gown when the boys made comments about the dressing gown to the effect that he was wearing a dress.

“They were being tricky and difficult and didn’t move on,” Mrs Holmes said.

“He went into his kitchen and put a kitchen knife in his pocket in case they did something else. He said one of the boys came towards him so he produced the knife.”

Chairman of the bench Martin Smith told Smith that in view of the fact that he went inside to get the weapon and instead of staying inside came back out with it, together with the threats he made, the bench was declining jurisdiction.

He said sentencing would take place at Swindon Crown Court at a date to be fixed. Smith was released on unconditional bail.