A man giggled as he produced a large kitchen knife from his sleeve while in an Oswaldtwistle pub, a court has heard.

Yaseen Blackburn, 37, was immediately kicked out of the Rose and Crown pub, in Oswaldtwistle, after showing the landlord the knife during an ‘inexplicable’ incident.

But Recorder Kevin Talbot said he could ‘temper’ the sentence in Blackburn’s case because there was no ‘meaningful violence’.

Sentencing him to 26 weeks in prison he said: “The item in your possession was potentially of a particularly dangerous nature and the offence was committed on licensed premises.”

Prosecutor Joe Boyd told Burnley Crown Court how Blackburn took a knife measuring between 10 and 14 inches from his sleeve and started to giggle. Mr Boyd said the landlord grabbed Blackburn’s arms, dragged him to the door and threw him out. When the police arrived, the defendant had gone to his home address at Stanley Street, Oswaldtwistle.  When a police officer arrived he seized the knife and arrested Blackburn, the prosecutor said.

Mr Boyd added that the knife had not been used to threaten or cause harm to anyone. Blackburn, of no fixed abode, but previously of Stanley Street, Oswaldtwistle, pleaded guilty on the day of his trial to possession of a bladed article in a public place.

Mr Walsh, defending, said Blackburn expressed remorse through his guilty plea and is a regular in the pub where he often plays pool with the landlord.

He said: “He’s generally thought of very well in that pub. That being the case I ask your honour to note that he never intended any harm.

“What he did was inexplicable and very odd but happily no one was threatened or hurt.”