A half-naked man was seen coming out of a pub carrying what turned out to be an ornamental sword, a court heard.

Paul Clarkson was stripped to the waist as he left the Northern pub in Halifax Road, Buttershaw, and ran off when two police officers tried to speak with him, prosecutor Heather Gilmore told Bradford Crown Court today.

The officers gave chase and as they entered Smith Avenue they saw Clarkson throw something into the garden of a nearby house. He was arrested and when an officer searched the garden he found the ornamental samurai sword.

In interview, Clarkson said he had bought the sword in Benidorm.

Clarkson, 38, of Halifax Road, Odsal, pleaded guilty to possessing a bladed article. He was given a four-month jail sentence suspended for a year and placed under a 12-month supervision order.

Passing sentence, Judge Roger Scott said: "The Government says that there are too many knives about on the streets of the United Kingdom and I agree with that entirely."

He told Clarkson: "This was an extremely vicious-looking, effective, violent weapon. You had this weapon in the street for no good reason."

In deciding to suspend the jail term, Judge Scott said he accepted that Clarkson was "not a well man, on any view."

mitigating, said that although he had not yet been diagnosed as epileptic Clarkson was responding to ant-epilepsy medication for his seizures.