An Exeter man has been jailed for carrying a knife and threatening a neighbour with a broom handle during a heated row in the street.

Joshua Bowen, 19, of Foxhayes Road, told police he had the fold-up knife with him on playing fields at Cowick Barton because he owed money to a gang from Liverpool.

In a separate incident the next day he got into an argument with a neighbour and followed him up the street waving a broom handle at him.

A judge at Exeter Crown Court said he had no option but to send Bowen to jail because the offences put him in breach of a suspended sentence.

Prosecutor Mr Greg Richardson said the first offence happened on December 9.

Police were on patrol when they spotted Bowen ‘acting in a furtive way’ on playing fields.

They searched him, suspecting he had drugs, but found only the knife.

“He said he was having some issues with others he referred to as ‘Scousers’,” said the prosecutor.

He said he was carrying the knife for protection because he had been robbed of £2,500 of drugs that he was keeping for them and ‘the Scousers now held him responsible for the debt’.

The next day Bowen got into a row with a male neighbour who accused him of spray painting his car.

Mr Richardson said the neighbour grabbed a baseball bat and started hitting the wall of Bowen’s house and shouting for him to come out.

When Bowen did emerge he had the broom handle and followed the other man back to his property. The other man went inside and there was no violence.

Bowen admitted affray and possessing a bladed article in a public place.

He has a number of previous convictions of criminal damage, and also affray, battery, possession of cannabis and assault. He was given a suspended jail sentence in November last year for aggravated vehicle taking.

Mr Warren Robinson, defending, said Bowen had been having a miserable time in custody since his arrest and ‘can’t really handle himself’ very well.

He said Bowen had spent a lot of his adult life homeless and had mental health issues.

Judge Michael Cullum said it was time for the defendant to draw a line under his offending and start afresh when he was released from prison.

He jailed Bowen for seven months.