A SUSPENDED jail term has been handed to a teenager seen striding along a Carlisle street with a so-called 'zombie knife' after he rowed with his mum. 

Jack Stewart, 19, who had never been in trouble before, picked up the weapon following the argument, which was the result of him returning home “in a state” after drinking and taking cocaine, magistrates heard.

When arrested, he was also carrying a lock-knife.

But a probation officer told the court that the teenager’s actions were “totally out of character.” Stewart, of Lingmoor Way, Harraby, admitted two offences of possessing an offensive weapon in a public place.

Pam Ward, prosecuting at the city’s Rickergate court, said police were alerted at 6pm on July 23 when they took a call from a concerned resident.

“The person was saying that a mother and her son appeared to be arguing outside their property on Lingmoor Way; and there was a further report of the male having a large knife,” Mrs Ward told the court.

The defendant was then seen walking along the street, with the knife in his right hand. As he made his way to London Road, he was seen discarding the large knife in somebody’s front garden. 

Police arrested the defendant and when the officers searched him, they found a lock-knife in his pocket. They also found the discarded zombie knife in the garden where Stewart had earlier dumped it.

A probation officer who interviewed the teenager confirmed he was “very remorseful”. “He has no previous convictions and this was totally out of character,” she said. “He’d been at a friend’s house since 6 or 7pm the previous evening and had been drinking alcohol and had also taken cocaine.”

Still heavily under the influence, he persuaded his friend to take him home. “But the [defendant’s] mum hadn’t been very happy about him being out all night and coming home in the state he was in,” continued the probation officer.

“There was an altercation.

“But he has no idea why he picked up the knife. Apparently, it used to belong to one of his friends and is an ornamental knife.”

A carer for his mother, the teenager, who had been involved in the past in a form of nighttime hunting known as lamping, had forgotten the lock knife was in his jacket pocket, added the officer. 

Defence lawyer Anthony Wilson told magistrates: “The prosecution has called [the bigger knife] a zombie knife; and it does look as if it could end the lives of Batman, Superman and Wolverine.

“But it’s an ornament; he would never have used it to threaten or stab anybody. He picked it up in temper but as soon as he realised what he’d done, he threw it away. It was a drunken mistake by a young man with no previous convictions.”

Magistrates told the teenager that they had seen a photo of the zombie knife, which they said was a “very intimidating blade.”

The defendant had picked it up when unsure of whether he was in control of his emotions; and the sight of him walking along the street with that weapon must have been scary, they said.

The presiding magistrate said the court had heard before claims that those carrying knives would never use them. But sometimes circumstances arose when such weapons are used, the magistrate warned.

Stewart was given eight months jail but, noting the plea and mitigation, the magistrates suspended that jail term for a year. The defendant must complete 60 hours of unpaid work and pay a £187 victim surcharge.

Both knives will be destroyed.