A REPEAT West Cumbria knife offender caught with a blade in public after popping out for milk is back behind bars.
Ryan Neil Simpson, 41, was stopped by police at Gladstone Street in Workington at around 8-50am on January 4.
Simpson was found to be carrying a wooden-handled lock knife in his jacket pocket.
“He accepted it was in his possession,” prosecutor Gerard Rogerson told Carlisle Crown Court. “He said he didn’t intend to use it to harm anybody. He knew it was illegal.”
That was because heavily-convicted Simpson, previously of Queen Street in Maryport, had three previous convictions for illegal public blade possession, and two others for unlawfully having offensive weapons.
Simpson had been jailed for six months last April after being caught in possession of two blades and a “knuckleduster” ring.
Kim Whittlestone, defending, said Simpson had been keeping out of trouble since his release from that jail term, and “trying to get away from drug life” before committing the January offence. “He put on a jacket to go and get some milk, and didn’t realise the knife was there,” stated Miss Whittlestone.
Handing down a 12-month prison sentence today (TUES), Judge Nicholas Barker said of Simpson’s latest knife offence. “Why have it? It just puts yourself in jeopardy.
“Whether you didn’t know you had it that morning, frankly, it seems to me, doesn’t provide you with any mitigation. You simply shouldn’t avail yourself of items of this sort at all.”
