A judge has deplored the “endemic” use of knives after viewing CCTV footage of a man brandishing a machete during a fight in York.
District judge Adrian Lower, sitting at York Magistrates’ Court, highlighted the eminent dangers of young men carrying blades after 21-year-old Joe Rough admitted carrying the deadly combat weapon in the street.
The shocking incident occurred on Bramham Road in February when police received a report of a video circulating on Facebook showing Rough pulling out a machete after being pinned against a wall by two men.
Prosecutor Antony Farrell said that Rough drew the machete from his trouser leg and threatened at least one of the other men with it. He left the scene but was subsequently arrested.
Mr Farrell said that neither of the men involved in the “altercation” wanted to give a statement, nor did the individual who recorded the incident and put it on Facebook.
Police later recovered the machete from the home of one of Rough’s friends.
Rough, of Bramham Avenue, York, appeared for sentence today (26 June) after pleading guilty to possessing a bladed article in a public place at a previous hearing.
The court was told he had a previous conviction from 2024 for being drunk and disorderly.
His solicitor Neil Cutte said that Rough was a “vulnerable” young man who had been carrying the machete for self-protection.
He said that Rough had drink and drug problems which had exacerbated his mental-health issues and had been addicted to alcohol and illicit substances since his early teens.
“For whatever reason…he appears to be one of those people who, throughout most of his life, has been picked on by other people,” added Mr Cutte.
“This is part and parcel of why this offence occurred.”
He said that Rough had bought the machete online shortly before the incident and had done so for “self-defence purposes, as he would say it”.
“He kept it at a friend’s house and didn’t bring it out until the day in question,” added Mr Cutte.
“He has limited recollection of the incident because of alcohol and drugs.”
He said that Rough, who was on benefits, brought the blade out after “some sort of altercation with two other people who didn’t want to give statements”.
District judge Mr Lower said: “It seems to be endemic in this country that young men – usually men – take knives out with them onto the street.”
He said this was why it was inevitable, ordinarily, that “people who carry knives go to prison”.
“It seems to be the only way of punishing people and deterring this kind of behaviour,” he added.
The judge noted that Rough was intoxicated at the time of the incident in which he was “outnumbered as a result of waving the machete about”.
He told the York man: “There’s something of a pattern that is beginning to develop where you have too much to drink and you just can’t behave yourself.
“I have to take the view that because of the sentencing guidelines, the offence… is so serious it does cross the custody threshold.”
However, Mr Lower said he could suspend the jail sentence in Rough’s case, so that he could get the help that he needed in terms of his mental-health, drug and alcohol problems.
The 12-month prison sentence was suspended for two years, during which Rough will have to complete a six-month alcohol-treatment programme.
He was also ordered to complete a six-month drug-rehabilitation course and 25 rehabilitation-activity days. He was ordered to pay £85 costs and a £114 victim surcharge.