A DRUNK whose trousers kept falling down threatened an off duty policeman with a knife after behaving bizarrely with children in a park.

Karl Taylor, who repeatedly accidentally exposed himself, was confronted after wandering round asking teenagers if they wanted to smoke cannabis with him.

But having heard the 26-year-old has moved away and is trying to tackle his issues a judge at Swindon Crown Court imposed a suspended sentence.

Colin Meeke, prosecuting, said Taylor was first seen near the Grange Park Leisure Centre in Stratton at about 6.30pm on May 18, with his trousers repeatedly dropping.

“He either pulled down or his trousers were so loose they fell down and exposed his backside and genitals,” he said.

Taylor first approached a 17-year-old girl and her friends as they sat on a bench, laying next to them and putting his head on her lap then stroking her hair.

He asked if they wanted to take cannabis with him and when one of the girls tried to take a photo of him he tried to grab at her phone as she did it before lurching off.

He then moved on to a group of boys on another bench waving his belt and asking if they wanted to smoke dope with him.

The boy called his brother, an MOD policeman, who came to help him out. The officer and a friend went to an address in St Quentin Close where they saw the defendant behind a curtain swearing and shouting: "I am going to kill you, I am going to stab you all, go away from my house."

Mr Meeke said: “They were warned off by a woman who said he had had quite a lot to drink and he had a knife. Sure enough he appeared. He appeared with the bread knife in his hand.

“He came out of the property and said: ‘I am going to stab the lot of you’ and stood in front of them with the knife in his hand."

As they watched jogged towards them and raised the knife to chest height. The officer grabbed a bike to fend off the defendant.

He then went into a nearby garden, still waving the knife around, and continued to strut around with waving it before the police arrived.

Taylor, now of Carlisle, admitted affray and having a knife and was found guilty by justices of threatening behaviour. Richard Williams, defending, said since moving to Cumbria his client had made positive changes and was getting help to address his drinking.

Passing sentence Recorder Michael Vere-Hodge QC said: “It is difficult really to understand precisely what made you behave in this rather bizarre way on the particular day.

“You do have previous convictions but nothing that suggests you might behave like this in such a random and dangerous way involving a knife.

“The reason the courts have to take such a serious view of knives is that you only have to read the papers from time to time, and these days rather more frequently, that people are being killed by knives.”

He imposed 12 months jail suspended for two years, 100 hours unpaid work and six months alcohol treatment.