Benjamin Richard Mark Robert pleaded guilty to the two offences and was sentenced on Tuesday before Relief Magistrate David Le Cornu.
Crown Advocate Carla Carvalho, prosecuting, told the court that police received a 999 call on the night of 1 September reporting that a man with a knife was fighting with another man in Bath Street.
She said a driver and passengers in a passing car had seen the incident and reported it to the police. The driver of the car had also tried to stop the altercation, at which point Robert told him to stay back and that he had a knife, which he produced from his shorts.
Robert had taken the knife from his home after his partner had received a distressed call from his sister, the court heard, and said he had intended to confront his sister’s boyfriend. He admitted he had been drinking heavily at the time. Crown Advocate Carvalho added that Robert ‘bumped into’ another man in the street on his way and began fighting with him. He pushed and punched the man before the driver of the car tried to intervene.
Robert then left the scene.
The police later found the defendant outside Bean Around the World café, and retrieved the knife from a wheelie bin, where he had been seen disposing of it on CCTV.
Crown Advocate Carvalho said the incident was distressing for the driver of the car and his passengers, who were said to be ‘physically shaking’.
Advocate James Bell, defending, said the defendant had lost a close family member in the year before the incident and had not been coping well, too often turning to alcohol.
He added that Robert had ‘genuine remorse’ and had co-operated with the police and the court system since he was apprehended.
He pointed out the defendant had already been in custody for four weeks since the incident and had not left his home with any intent to harm anyone.
Advocate Bell said Robert had made a ‘foolish decision’ and asked that the court consider probation and community service when sentencing, adding that according to the witness accounts, the knife had been out for only a matter of seconds and the defendant’s actions had been ‘unexpected and entirely spontaneous’.
‘He is genuinely full of regret for the way that evening unfolded,’ Advocate Bell said.
Mr Le Cornu said knife crime was a problem in the UK and dealt with seriously in Jersey.
However, because of the time spent in custody by the defendant, his young age and the fact that no one had been injured with the knife, his sentence would be 150 hours of community service and 12 months’ probation.
Mr Le Cornu warned Robert that if he was to breach these orders and find himself before the court again, he would be treated very differently.
Robert was also sentenced on two historic larceny charges for shoplifting bottles of alcohol in 2017. He was fined £100 on each count and ordered to pay £33 in compensation.
