Man, 27, wielded knife at cars after 'being hit by brick'

Kieran Churm admitted to being in possession of a knife in a public place after police caught him lunging at passing cars with a knife.

He was given a 14-month suspended sentence at Shrewsbury Crown Court.

The 27-year-old was also ordered to 20 days of rehabilitation and 19 sessions of a thinking skills programme.

Churm lunged at passing cars in the centre of Albrighton at about 8.50pm on May 11. Police were called and his friends and family arrived to try to get him to drop the weapon.

Miss Siobhan Collins, prosecuting, said: "Police arrived and tried to calm him down. He put down his knife, but had a second one. That was taken too.

"He ran into a new build estate and took his shirt off. He started speaking to someone who wasn't there. He was saying that his family and friends were coming."

Churm picked up a stone measuring 50cm by 30cm before police caught up with him and calmed him down.

Intoxication

After he had been escorted home, Churm seemed to calm down. But later ran off again, and was found in a field.

Miss Collins said he had a "high level of intoxication".

Churm, defending himself, said he had been hit in the head with a brick earlier in the day, and had drunk too much afterwards.

"Something out of the ordinary had happened," he said. "I had been hit by a brick.

"I had had too many beers," he added. "I am sorry."

Judge Jonathan Gosling warned that Churm had a problem with binge drinking.

"You need to stop drinking so much," he said. "If only because you will kill yourself.

"You ought to have grown out of this behaviour.

"You are a hard working man, but you are a binge drinker. It has got you in repeated trouble in the past. You have got to control it."

Mr Gosling said Churm, of High Street, Albrighton, had been fully co-operative with police and taken responsibility from the beginning.