Police were called when a drunken man was found asleep outside a resident's flat - shoeless and with a hunting-style knife in a pouch by his feet. The man was Steven Golding, 41, of Grange Road, West Bridgford, Nottingham Magistrates' Court heard today (January 10).
He pleaded guilty to possessing the knife in Vernon Road, Old Basford, after the court heard how he was woken by police and the knife seized. "The defendant was intoxicated," said Sanjay Jareth, prosecuting. "He appeared to be wearing no shoes and he stated he did not live in the complex."
Golding, who has 30 convictions for 108 offences, was last before the court for assaulting an emergency worker and was sentenced to six months in prison. He has previous convictions for threatening with a blade, robbery, handling stolen goods, burglary, and having an offensive weapon in public in 2013.
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Mr Jareth told District Judge Leo Pyle, who sentenced Golding: "In short, he is an individual who not only carries knives, he is not afraid to use them." Stephen Burdon, mitigating, asked for credit for Golding's guilty plea, but added that his client 'can't remember, and police seem to support this; what happened to him, where he was, he was disorientated where he was'.
Mr Burdon stressed the knife was 'not brandished' and police were called 'simply because he fell asleep in that particular doorway and members of the public noticed the knife was there'. Judge Pyle sent Golding to prison for eight months, of which he will serve half before release, and then he will be subject to licence and supervision from probation.
He was ordered to pay a victim surcharge of £187. The judge told the defendant: "Every knife taken into a public place presents a danger to members of the public. Why? Because that knife could be used on somebody, and could be used on you."
His previous convictions aggravated the offence. Golding spoke between the slats in the glass-front dock to a lady in the public gallery after he was jailed: "Tell my mum and that I have no money or trainers or nothing."
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