Birkenhead wheelchair user breached ASBO by pulling out knife and making threats to stab and shoot

Aug 20 2008 by Sue McCann, Birkenhead News

A KNIFE-WIELDING man in a wheelchair has narrowly escaped a prison sentence after breaching an anti-social behaviour order.

Birkenhead County Court was told that John Jones, of Ballantyne Drive, Birkenhead, was in the road outside his house threatening to stab and shoot residents and children attending the nearby Ballantyne Community Centre.

Jones, who was in a wheelchair, also pulled a knife from his shorts, shouting further threats, the court was told.

An application had been made by Wirral Anti-Social Behaviour Team on behalf of Jones’s landlord, Beechwood & Ballantyne Community Housing Association, and on June 24 a two-year anti-social behaviour injunction was issued against him.

Evidence was brought to the team’s attention that Jones had been subjecting his former care worker to threatening and harassing telephone calls, following her decision to cease being his carer at the beginning of August.

At a hearing at Birkenhead County Court, Jones denied the allegations.

But District Judge Peake concluded that Jones had breached the terms of the injunction, and made it clear that Jones had escaped a prison sentence by “the skin of his teeth”.

He ordered that an additional condition be imposed on Jones specifically naming his former carer as an individual he should not approach or contact in any way whatsoever.

Jones is banned from being in possession of a knife outside his home or in the locality of Ballantyne Community Centre.

He is also ordered not to threaten to use or use violence or foul and abusive language or gestures towards any persons residing in, visiting or otherwise engaging in any lawful activity in the locality of the Ballantyne community centre.