A MAN rang police from a telephone kiosk in Wrexham and said he would stab someone if he was not arrested.
William Peter Roberts, 52, said he did not want to attend a probation appointment the following day and wanted to go to prison.
Roberts was jailed yesterday for 10 months after he admitted sending a false message, which put him in breach of an earlier suspended prison sentence.
Judge Merfyn Hughes QC, sitting at Mold Crown Court, said Roberts had been given a suspended sentence in August last year for a serious charge where he ran around a playing field with a knife.
While subject to that sentence, he rang the police, while drunk, on January 2.
“You said that you would stab someone if you were not arrested,” he said.
When arrested Roberts said he wanted to go to prison. A custodial sentence was now inevitable.
Roberts, of Montgomery Road, Wrexham, was told by the judge he was “dry” while in custody but he was concerned about what would happen when he was released back into the community.
“I want you to promise me that you will think very seriously about going to see Alcoholics Anonymous when you come out.
“You are only 52. You have enough of a life ahead of you to stay sober and not to get drunk and get into trouble all the time.”
Nigel Booth, defending, said alcohol was at the root of his client’s problems.
He was realistic enough to realise it now had to be custody.
“At the present stage of his life, if he is at liberty, then he fears he will succumb to his alcohol dependency,” he said.
Roberts was taking advantage of the assistance available to him in custody.
l Roberts received a nine month prison sentence suspended for two years in August.
His sentence followed an incident where members of the public called police when they saw a drunken man sitting on a bench holding a knife.
But it turned out Roberts had no intention of hurting anyone apart from himself.
He had been drinking and had been to the graves of his mother, brother and girlfriend who had all recently died, and he was contemplating suicide, Mold Crown Court was told.
Roberts admitted a public order offence following the incident at Queensway, Caia Park.