An ex-soldier whose life 'spiralled out of control' after being kicked by a horse was caught with a knife and fake gun outside Tesco.
Mark Holt, 33, was arrested by armed police after he was spotted walking with a friend who was carrying a crossbow in Oldham. Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court was told a 'gobsmacked' resident called police over the second man pointing the weapon at trees 'as if he were practising shooting' in Bellfield Avenue.
Specialist officers arrested them both outside Tesco Express in Ashton Road shortly after 5.15pm on July 23. Holt, of Ashton Road, Oldham, had a knife in his right hand and an imitation firearm, made to look similar to a Remington self-loading pistol, hidden in his jacket pocket.
Holt told police he was carrying the weapons because he had had some 'trouble' with 'a lad' the same day, and there had been a group of 15 men outside his house 'coming for him'. He said he had taken the fake gun 'for protection' but had no intention of harming anybody.
Holt pleaded guilty to possession of a bladed article and possession of an imitation firearm with intent to cause fear. He also admitted to being under the influence of drugs and alcohol at the time of the offence. Sentencing Holt on October 6 to two years in prison, Judge Saville warned that, although Holt's firearm was imitation and unloaded, 'this type of offending very quickly escalates to murder or manslaughter'.
The court also heard how Holt was released on license from two previous knifepoint robbery offences in Dukinfield, but had been given accommodation in a hostel where he quickly fell into taking illegal drugs. Mitigating, Ms Bennett told the court that Holt was 'remorseful' for his actions, and had stopped taking drugs and drinking alcohol since he returned to custody.
Sentencing, Judge Saville recognised Holt's situation, which saw him discharged from a 'prominent regiment' in the British army after he suffered serious injuries by being kicked by a horse in 2018. He also noted that Holt had not used or threatened to use either he knife or the imitation firearm, and that 'the public were never aware of its existence'.
He said that Holt had accepted he had the firearm 'with the intention to cause fear', but was under the influence of crack cocaine, heroin, and alcohol when the offence took place and therefore was 'unlikely to have had a full understanding of what you were doing'.
"You were discharged from the army for reasons that were not your fault, and it seems your life has spiralled out of control ever since," he told Holt. Judge Saville sentenced Holt to two years months in prison.
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