A CARMARTHEN man who walked into a police station and said he wanted to go to jail got his way after he suddenly produced a “pretty dangerous” knife.
Joshua Denton, aged 23, told police in Llanelli he had bought the knife a week earlier “for an offensive purpose.”
But, a judge at Swansea crown court was told, he had not actually used it and no-one even knew he had it until he showed it to the police.
Denton, of Little Water Street, admitted possessing a bladed article in a public place and was jailed for six months.
Frank Phillips, the barrister representing Denton, said he accepted that Denton already had a criminal record that ran to 17 pages.
He said on this occasion Denton had seen his partner “canoodling, to use an old fashioned expression, with a former boyfriend” and felt he needed time to reflect on his life.
The day before the offence he told a probation officer that he wanted to go back to prison.
“It is a bizarre and extremely unusual offence,” added Mr Phillips. “Denton told the police it was better that they had the knife than he used it.
“Until that moment no-one even knew he had bought a knife.”
Mr Phillips said Denton had been in prison since the incident and had progressed well.
The judge, Mr Recorder Peter Griffiths, said he could not overlook that Denton had intended to cause harm and had gone to the trouble of buying “a potentially nasty weapon.”
Denton remains under an eight week suspended prison sentence passed at an earlier court hearing for an offence of affray.
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