A KNIFEMAN worried about his own mental health called police so he could be arrested, a court heard.

David Lowe, 28, who was detained in Accrington, felt that prison was “the best place for him”, Burnley Crown Court was told.

Last year Lowe, then of Woodside Road, Huncoat, was arrested in similar circumstances, the court heard.

He was apprehended near The Mount, the mental health facility in Accrington, after damaging a window there.

His second arrest occurred just six days after he had finished a prison sentence for the earlier incident, the court heard.

Lowe, who pleaded guilty to possession of a bladed article, was jailed for eight months by Judge Philip Parry.

Karen Brooks, prosecuting, said police were on patrol in Accrington, at around 8.30pm on December 12, when they were called to reports of a man brandishing a knife in the Spring Gardens area.

She told the court that officers arrived on the scene and saw Lowe had an object in his left hand. He allowed himself to be apprehended.

Lowe immediately confessed to the offence and told police he had rang them himself, in the hope of being arrested.

Defence counsel Claire Larton said the offence at The Mount, in October, had occurred just days after he had been released from mental health in-patient treatment.

She told the court he felt he had been failed by the system and had, like the later incident, called the police himself so he could be arrested.

“The defendant says that he took the knife out with him and he had it on show, in the hope he would be arrested,” said Miss Larton.

“His intention was not to hurt anyone but to go back to prison and get help.

“He became so emotional at one point his police interview had to be suspended.

“He said he had no support, no family or friends, and had come to the conclusion that prison was the best place for him to be. He gets help there and it is the only place he feels safe.”

The court heard that even before the offence outside The Mount, he had also served a prison sentence for knife possession.