A MAN caught by police with a kitchen knife as he argued with an opponent who had earlier assaulted him has been jailed for four months.

Tanvir Ahmed, 31, was seen in confrontation with another man by PCSO’s patrolling on Whetley Lane in Bradford just after 9pm on December 30 last year.

Prosecutor Philip Adams told Bradford Crown Court that as the officers approached Ahmed, they found he had facial injuries and blood on his clothes.

He told them he had been assaulted earlier in the evening, and while giving the details to officers he pulled out a knife with a four-and-a-half inch blade, stating: “I went home and got a knife, I was going to kill him.”

He put the knife on a wall, and it was seized by officers who then arrested him.

In interview, Ahmed said he had gone to get the knife for his own protection before “returning to extract an apology”, admitting he had drunk “five or six cans of Polish lager” that night.

Mr Adams said: “The defendant had been drinking and was actively seeking a confrontation with the other man at the time of his arrest.”

Ahmed, who the court heard had received a 54-month sentence in 2012 for drugs and firearms-related offences, pleaded guilty to the possession of a bladed article in a public place.

Abdul Shakoor, defending, said Ahmed, of Blythe Avenue, Bradford, accepted he was “staring down the barrel of immediate custody.”

He argued that any jail term could be suspended as his client, who the court heard had an “underlying problem with alcohol, had voluntarily handed the knife over to police and had pleaded guilty to the offence at the first opportunity. He said there was “an element of provocation” to the incident, as the other man had reportedly attacked Ahmed for no reason while he was stood in a phonebox.

Mr Shakoor said: “There was an opportunity to use the knife, but he didn’t.”

Judge Colin Burn said that immediate jail terms were the only way courts could highlight the dangers of carrying knives.

He told Ahmed: “I accept you had been assaulted, and were injured when spoken to by police. You volunteered to them that you had the knife.

“But you made a deliberate decision to take a nasty-looking knife back into a violent confrontation. It is that decision that means I can’t deal with this case by anything other than an immediate custodial sentence.”