Posted on 07/24/2017 1:43:51 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Armed police descended on a Swansea street after a neighbour rang 999
A SWANSEA man who “charged around the streets with a machete” just days after the terror attack on London Bridge was told by the armed police who arrested him that he could have been shot.
Josh Powell produced the weapon after an exchange of “unpleasant words” with a man living on the street
A concerned neighbour saw what was happening and called 999 - with firearms officers quickly arriving.
Swansea Crown Court heard the incident was sparked by a row between partners on Baptist Well Street in Waun Wen just before midnight on June 6.
\ Dean Pulling said 20-year-old Powell saw the altercation as he and his brothers stood on the doorstep of their mother’s house on the street.
When the male in the rowing couple pushed his partner, Powell became “incensed” at what was happening, and “words were exchanged”.
The court heard Powell told his neighbour he was “going to do him” before going into his mother’s house - and emerging moments later with a large machete.
The prosecutor said an “agitated and angry” Powell then began swinging the weapon around, and threatening his neighbour - who retreated indoors.
A witness to the incident - who had been putting her bin bags out - called 999, and armed police from the Dyfed-Powys force were quickly on the scene.
The court heard the officers were deployed to the front and rear of a house on the street - however they had been given the wrong number, and it was from the next door property that Powell emerged.
He initially told officers he had been carrying a small knife which he had thrown down the drain, but when told the drains would be searched he pointed them in the direction of the discarded machete.
Powell, of Clyne Court, Sketty , had previously pleaded guilty to possessing a bladed article when he appeared in the dock for sentencing.
He has no previous convictions.
The court heard the Baptist Well Street incident happened just days after the van and knife attacks on London Bridge, and officers told Powell they could have shot him.
In his interview he said he understood why witnesses could have been frightened by what they had seen.
Dan Griffiths, for Powell, said his client had become “incensed” by the row he saw, and after “some unpleasant language was used” he retrieved a machete he had taken to his mother’s house to tackle an overgrown garden.
The advocate said Powell accepted his behaviour had been “foolish in the extreme”.
Judge Keith Thomas said the introduction of weapons into conflict situations was dangerous, and something the courts were rightly concerned about.
He said whatever had prompted Powell’s actions there was no excuse for using a “fearsome weapon like a machete, and charging around the streets with it”.
Powell was sentenced to eight months in a young offenders institution suspended for 18 months, and was ordered to complete 100 hours of unpaid work and a rehabilitation course.
That’s *should have been shot*.
Wrong house again, eh? Pip pip cheerio Bobbies!
Good thing there wasn’t a dog in the yard.
Well, it would have been more understandable than Justice Damand.
“Armed police descended on a Swansea street after a neighbour rang 999.”
There’s the problem.
If you want someone shot instead of verbally warned...you ring 911.
I take it that 999 is their 911.
I wonder if it was really a machete as generally known in the trade and by enthusiasts. Especially a “large” machete. Perhaps it was a big butcher knife or a billhook, or even an AK-47.
“When the male in the rowing couple pushed his partner, Powell became “incensed” at what was happening...”
Muslim enforcing his property rights, or white trash teaching a lesson, or Afro-Caribbean wanting his cut of her dole?
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