Blackpool knife thug: '˜Watch what I do to this man from Salford'

Dad-of-one Connor Jack Thomas, 25, was described as being paranoid and fearful by his defence lawyer, who told a judge he became embroiled in drugs and had himself suffered serious injuries in an attack.

In the early hours on New Year’s Day 2017, three friends who had been for a drink after finishing their New Year’s eve shift in a Blackpool bar, saw Thomas in the street and wished him a Happy New Year.

Preston’s Sessions House Court was told the trio, who were on George Street in the town centre, were wished a Happy New Year in return by Thomas who asked where they were from, and he even gave one of them a fist pump.

However, thing turned sour when one of the men revealed he was from Salford.

Prosecuting, Claire Larton said: “The defendant said: ‘Watch what I do, watch what I do to this man from Salford - I will stab this man.”

“He then held it in front of his groin and brandished it.

“He said: ‘I’m Connor Thomas, I’m from Blackpool, you’d better run.”

The court heard the men ran onto Grosvenor Street where they phoned police and told a lady walking her dog not to go around the corner because the man had a knife.

Police found Thomas, of no fixed abode, on Dickson Road.

He told them he had been at a family party and said the men must have “mistaken a bottle of Buckfast tonic for a knife”.

On October 30 last year Thomas caused £12,000 damage to a police vehicle which he rammed in a bid to avoid police.

On November 3, while on bail, Thomas and another man attacked a friend in Claremont Park who they had been drinking with earlier that evening.

Thomas admitted affray and possession of a bladed article over the first incident, driving dangerously and without insurance or a licence over the second, and affray over the last incident.

Defending, Rachel Woods revealed he had previously been stabbed himself, and a few days after his hospital release someone attempted to run him over, making him fearful of his safety. Thomas was jailed for 28 months.