Published at 08:59, Saturday, 30 June 2012

A young woman who took a freezer knife on to the streets of Carlisle to scare somebody she was angry with has been jailed for eight months.

Chelsea Watterson, 19, committed the offence within days of being released from an earlier spell in custody. She was caught at 10.15pm on June 5 as she walked along Shady Grove Road in Raffles, Carlisle Crown Court heard.

A concerned member of the public had earlier raised the alarm after seeing her clutching the knife as she walked along Newtown Road.

When police searched her, they found the knife tucked into the waist band of her jogging bottoms.

Tim Evans, prosecuting, said she told police she was angry with somebody, who she refused to name, and her intention had been to find and scare that person.

“She said she would never have stabbed anybody with the knife,” said Mr Evans.

Greg Hoare, for the defendant, said she was an intelligent person with real potential but at the time she committed the offence she felt she had nowhere to go.

Judge Peter Hughes QC said the defendant, who admitted possessing a bladed article in a public place and breaching her licence after being released from prison, had problems which were linked to her immaturity and dabbling in drugs and alcohol.

He told her: “You will understand, as anyone will understand, that if you take a knife in such circumstances and are involved in an altercation anything can happen.

He added there was no alternative in this case to custody, which in Watterson’s case will be served in a young offenders’s institution.

Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk