A TEENAGER who swung a machete around in the street and aimed it at another man was yesterday slammed by a judge for his "appalling conduct".

Recorder David Wilby QC only spared Haroon Khan an immediate jail sentence because of his age and his role as a carer for his grandmother. He told the defendant him the way he acted was totally unacceptable and frightening.

Bradford Crown Court heard Khan grabbed a decorative machete from his home in Hollings Terrace, Manningham, and took it outside, swinging it at a man and a car windows.

The court was told that Khan, who pleaded guilty to possession of offensive weapon at an earlier hearing, was defending his uncle, who was involved in a fight with a group of men on the street.

But the judge said: "I am absolutely incredulous that someone goes out onto a street with a metre-long machete and tries to hit a person and hits a car. I am appalled.

"Either I live in a completely different world to the rest of the public, or this is appalling conduct.

"The fact that people think they can do this in what is supposed to be a civilised society is frightening. There was an attempt to hit someone in their upper body with a machete - one does not have to be a genius to work out that there could have been serious consequences."

Prosecutor David Lampitt said a fire officer attending an incident nearby on February 1 this year called police to report a fight in Hollings Terrace. There was lots of shouting and suddenly two cars - a Volkswagen Golf and an Isuzu - arrived, said Mr Lampitt.

Mr Lampitt said two men came out of a house and Khan was brandishing a machete.

"He ran towards the Golf and started to swing the machete at another male near the car who was trying to get away," he said.

Khan, who is unemployed, damaged the Isuzu's rear windscreen and driver's side window with the weapon.

Khan told police he had seen his uncle involved in a disturbance and had other men surrounding him, said Mr Lampitt.

Mr Wilby interjected: "So that explains why, in a public street in a northern English city, he was carrying a machete?"

Jon Gregg, defending, said: "He saw outside his house a relative in an altercation. He perceived that his relative might be the subject of harm or further harm and reacted foolishly."

He said Khan's saving grace was making a full admission and taking police to the weapon.

Mr Wilby gave Khan a nine-month sentence in a young offenders' institute, suspended for two years, and told him: "If you were a couple of years older and did not care for your grandmother, be sure that as night follows day you would have been going to an immediate custodial sentence."

He added: "You cannot, in a civilised society, take weapons into the street, then threaten someone and then try to smash someone's car windows.

"It is totally unacceptable that someone, under whatever circumstances, should act in that way."

Khan was also given a 12-month community order with a requirement to carry out 200 hours' unpaid work.