Pregnant Clitheroe teen's knife shame

10:40pm Tuesday 8th July 2008

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By David Watkinson »

A PREGNANT teenager who admitted arming herself with a knife to intimidate others has vowed to change her ways after being spared jail.

Bobbie-Jo Martin, 18, said she regretted taking the small kitchen knife out with her into Clitheroe town centre.

And her mother said she had been left terrified after discovering that her daughter had carried the weapon.

The incident follows a spate of knife crime in London which contributed to the killing of 19 teenagers in the capial this year.

Conservative MPs have called for mandatory jail sentences for anyone convicted of carrying a knife.

And a review of the way knife crime is handled by the court has been launched by Blackburn MP and Justice Secretary Jack Straw.

Figures released last November put Lancashire in the country’s top 10 ‘hotspots’ for knife crime after 102 attacks in three months.

Speaking from her home yesterday Martin, who lives with her mother Patricia, 48, boyfriend Simon Hartley, 23, brother Darren, 17 and sister, Georgina, 16, said she was sorry for carrying a knife.

She said: “I wasn’t even thinking straight and I had had a lot to drink. I’ve been involved in fights before but never carried a knife.

“I just wanted to scare “Everything will change now. I have found out that I am pregnant and I have stopped drinking and smoking.

“It’s not just as a result of what has happened at court but I know that the kid comes first.

“There are a lot of things on the television and newspapers about knife crime and I know how serious it is. I won’t be doing it again.”

Blackburn magistrates heard that Martin, a former trainee hairdresser, of Turner Street, Clitheroe, went home to get the weapon after a row with a man in a bar.

When she was arrested she told officers if she had seen the man she would have “stuck it in him.”

But magistrates pulled back from an immediate custodial sentence - despite recognising that Martin had a ‘propensity to be volatile’ and that she had an ‘appalling’ record for an 18-year-old.

Magistrates stressed that the fact Martin was 10-weeks pregnant had not influenced their decision not to send her to prison.

The former Ribblesdale High School pupil pleaded guilty to possessing a kitchen knife in Market Place after an incident late on Saturday night.

She was sentenced to 120 days in prison suspended for two years, made subject to community supervision for two years with a condition she attends the Think First programme and ordered to pay £60 costs.

Mum Patricia said the incident had left her “terrified”.

She said: “It’s not only the thought that she was carrying a knife. Who knows what could have happened. Someone could even have used the knife on her. It is not nice and I do worry.”

At court Charlotte Crane, prosecuting, said an officer was arresting a man in Market Place and Martin was shouting abuse at him, telling him to let the man go.

Martin was arrested and produced a wooden handled knife from the waistband of her trousers and said the officers “might as well have this.”

She told police she and her boyfriend had been thrown out of a pub after a row with another man who had spat at her.

Ben Leech, defending, said his client accepted the seriousness of the offence, especially in view of the current, high profile debate on knife crime.

He said: “Despite what she said to the police she was very unlikely to use the weapon, “It would have been used as a deterrent but thankfully even that situation did not arise.”

Following widespread concern over a series of fatal stabbings, Mr Straw said a broad review of the law would take place but he stopped short of ordering a re-think of the sentencing guidelines.

”Overall there are cases where fines would be appropriate, and there are cases where community sentences would be appropriate,” Mr Straw’s official spokesman said.

”There are also cases where custody would be appropriate. It’s important that there is a rounded view on this.”

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