COURT NEWS: Couple admit to threatening their neighbour with a knife

Marcus Little and Jo Barty, both 30, of Witham Street, who admitted possessing a knife and threatening behaviour, were said to have been shouting in the street at around 10.45pm on December 3 and when asked to go inside their house, threatened two different men with the knife, forcing them to retreat indoors and barricade themselves in.

Prosecuting, Marie Stace said that Barty was seen also to be banging on the window after one of them had put a chair against the front door to keep the couple out.

Ms Stace said Barty admitted to having drunk alcohol during the evening and could not remember what had happened.

She said she apologised and said she was ‘ashamed of herself’.

Little, who said he had drunk ‘well over ten pints of beer and some whisky’, told police it was the ‘worst day of his life.’

Mitigating, Helen Coney said both were of previous good character, who worked very hard and had been foster parents and legal guardians. She said they did not generally drink a lot and it was ‘out of character’ that they had drunk as much as they did on this evening.

The magistrates said the couple had made ‘an abhorrent mess of things’ and sentenced them each to four months in prison on each charge, suspended for a year.

They were ordered to pay £100 to each of the men they had threatened and a total of £213 in court costs and charges.