A MAN caught carrying a knife and drugs also assaulted people in a hospital and at a train station.

Lee Jenks was found to be in possession of controlled drugs on two occasions, as well as behaving in a threatening manner.

The 47-year-old was charged with three counts of assault by beating, two of possessing a class C drug, two of threatening behaviour and one of possessing a knife in public.

He appeared to be sentenced at Warrington Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday, November 22, where he was told that immediate custody was the only appropriate option.

Laura Simpson, prosecuting, explained how five of the offences occurred while Jenks, of Orford, was at Liverpool South Parkway train station on April 3.

He was twice found to have used threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour to cause harassment, alarm or distress.

In addition, he assaulted two people and was found to be in possession of 22 capsules of the class C controlled drug pregabalin, used to treat epilepsy, anxiety and nerve pain.

Jenks was found to be in possession of five tablets of the same drug in Warrington on November 21, as well as a knife in public ‘without good reason or lawful authority’.

The final charge was one of assaulting a woman at Warrington Hospital on July 29.

The defendant pleaded guilty to all charges except the hospital assault, for which he was convicted in his absence.

Before sentencing, chair magistrate Lynn Colter-Howard said that the offences are ‘so serious’ that only a custodial sentence can be justified.

This is due to the defendant having a ‘flagrant disregard for people and their property’, and the assaults being ‘unprovoked attacks of a serious nature’.

The court also heard that numerous offences were before the court, committed while on post-sentence supervision and with the defendant having previous convictions for similar offences.

Jenks, of Watkin Street in Orford, was sentenced to 52 weeks in prison and ordered to pay compensation of £150.

Orders for the forfeiture and destruction of the pregabalin tablets and to deprive the defendant of the knife were approved by magistrates.

In addition, a restraining order was granted prohibiting Jenks from contacting the woman he assaulted in Warrington Hospital and entering a named Warrington street for three years.