Drunk had eight-inch knife in waistband of his trousers
A drunk wandered down a Black Country high street with an eight-inch bladed knife tucked into the waistband of his trousers, a court heard.
Michael Law was traced by a police motorcyclist who had been flagged down and warned about the potential danger by a member of the public who had seen the armed man earlier in the afternoon.
The 43-year-old threw the knife away as the officer approached him in Smethwick High Street on April 9 but the weapon bounced back into the street and had to be hurled a second time on to a stretch of grass.
Mr Paul Farrow, prosecuting at Wolverhampton Crown Court on Thursday, said Law was intoxicated and police had to wait until he sobered up before being able to question him.
The defendant claimed he picked up the knife in the kitchen of a hostel where he had been living to make a sandwich and left the premises with the weapon. He insisted: "I am sorry. I will not do it again."
Law, of no fixed address, admitted possession of a bladed article and was given a two-year community order under supervision on condition that he attends a six-month alcohol treatment course.
Recorder Christopher Goodchild told him: "When you get drunk you can get nasty and if you are carrying a knife round with you, it could get used."
