Paralytic, a knife carrying workman threatened to stab police officers who were trying to help him - before spitting at them.

“You are going to get stabbed, I will stab you,” Jake Palmer told the officers, after being bound in handcuffs for carrying a stanley knife in Ashford.

Moments before, the 23-year-old was thrown out of the French Connection restaurant for rolling a joint after an afternoon of hard drinking.

A court heard he knocked back brandy and Stella Artois with work mates after their building site shift was rained off.

The father-to-be, who has two previous convictions for two offences, including carrying a blade, was today jailed for 16 months.

Judge Rupert Lowe said: “You had been at work on a building site, you had it (the knife) in your front left jeans pocket.

“Among other things, you openly rolled a joint in the pub - I have seen part of your behaviour on body worn camera.”

Footage played at Canterbury Crown Court showed Palmer sitting outside the venue, muttering jibberish and swearing at officers.

When officers discovered the blade in his left jeans pocket Palmer’s threats intensified and he spat at the police.

Prosecutor Sam Barker said: “A spit hood was placed over his head - he made threats that he was going to stab them.

“You are going to get stabbed, I will stab you,’ he said.”

In police interview Palmer said he was “eight or nine out of ten drunk” and forgot the knife was in his pocket.

But Mr Barker argued Palmer was likely aware he was carrying the weapon, having a previous conviction of carrying a bladed article.

The court heard in 2017 he was caught secreting a Stanley Knife behind a tree in a Dover park following a disturbance.

He spat at arresting officers before using racially aggravating behaviour towards a hospital worker, the court heard.

Palmer was then convicted of assaulting an emergency worker after drinking in December 2018.

Mitigating, Phil Rowley said Palmer wishes to address his alcohol problem and “pull his socks up” before his child is born.

However, Judge Lowe sentenced Palmer, of Hill Road in Folkestone, to 16 months for carrying a bladed article in public.

The incident happened near the venue in Hall Avenue on Ashford's Orbital Retail Park on March 12 this year.

Palmer pleaded guilty to the charge on the day of trial.

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