A West Cumbrian man who threatened a woman with a hammer as she cradled a toddler has been jailed.
Barry John Woolf, 43, was initially seen to emerge from an address in the Iredale Crescent area of Workington at around 10pm on August 2 this year.
People reported him urinating in the open as children were present close by.
As bystanders protested, Woolf — recently released from custody — went back inside a property.
“He re-emerged holding a claw hammer which he was swinging about,” prosecutor Brendan Burke told Carlisle Crown Court this morning.
“Children on the street as described as terrified.”
Woolf was alleged to have swung the hammer at a man who spoke of ducking out of the way.
He then lunged at a man and woman, who was carrying a 23-month-old child and walking with a boy aged 13.
One witness described the incident lasting up to 30 minutes with Woolf being heard to make grandiose remarks which included: “Barry John’s here now. Nothing will happen on this estate.”
Woolf was arrested and, after a magistrates’ court trial last month, convicted of two offences of threatening another with an offensive weapon. He was acquitted of a third such allegation.
As heavily-convicted Woolf was sentenced, Judge Michael Fanning noted he had scores of previous crimes on his record.
In 2017 Woolf was given a seven-year prison sentence for slashing a man’s face with a Stanley knife in Workington. Since then, he had twice been recalled to custody to serve the remainder of that sentence.
Defence lawyer Tariq Khawam spoke of Woolf’s difficult life, him being latterly homeless and of recent appeals for professional help going unheeded.
“Clearly serious. Clearly distressing but relatively short lived,” said Mr Khawam of the August incident. “He is sorry for his behaviour.”
Woolf, latterly of Broughton Moor, was given an immediate 20-month prison sentence.
“Drugs or alcohol or whatever it was you were taking on this occasion do not mix well with you,” said Judge Fanning. “You caused serious distress to two people in particular.”
