Man had large knife outside superstore

A man has been sent to prison for 10 months after admitting he was outside a borough supermarket armed with a knife.

But Stephen Cox claimed he wasn’t intending to hurt anyone with the large serrated kitchen blade and that he had only just found it.

Bolton Crown Court heard that on the afternoon of February 10 a member of the public spotted the 51-year-old walking through Leigh town centre clutching the knife. The witness rang police who caught up with Cox in front of the entrance to Tesco on Spinning Jenny Way and arrested him.

Cox, of Chapel Street, Leigh, told arresting officers that the blade wasn’t his and he had just come across it. The judge ordered Cox be jailed for 10 months for possession of a bladed weapon and that the knife be forfeited.