A DAD who was caught skulking around the streets with a police baton in his car has been jailed.

Police were called in the early hours one morning to the probation hostel in Abingdon Road, Oxford, after reports of two “ suspicious” males sitting in an Audi, a court heard.

Julian Lynch, prosecuting, said that the two men were seen shining a torch into the houses in nearby Edith Road.

Mr Lynch told Oxford Crown Court on Thursday that when police approached the car they found Daniel Ballantyne in the driver’s seat and Benjamin Croden in the passenger seat.

He added: “An officer noticed there was a police style, side-handled baton lying in the footwell of the vehicle.”

The pair were arrested and denied possessing an offensive weapon during the incident in July, but were found guilty after a trial at Oxford Magistrates’ Court last month.

Croden, 30 of Westlands Avenue, Weston-on-the-Green, was released on bail and is due to return to the court for sentence in December.

But 34-year-old Ballantyne was committed to the Crown Court because his conviction put him in breach of a suspended sentence for importing Class C drugs.

Ballantyne, of Andover Close, Bicester, was handed a 17-week jail term suspended for two years in May for importing 3,000 tablets, including diazepam and other anti-anxiety drugs, from India over the internet .

Neil Ronan, defending, said it would be unjust to activate the suspended sentence because the father-of-two had been complying with probation.

He added: “I won’t labour the point on the weapon save one point, that it wasn’t used to offend or in dangerous circumstances.

“He is doing very well on his community sentence, so well that probation have organised for him to go on a construction course next month which he is very much looking forward to .”

But Judge Peter Ross told Ballantyne said Ballantyne and Croden had been “skulking” around the hostel in the early hours of the morning with a weapon. He activated the suspended sentence and jailed Ballantyne for 13 weeks for possessing the police baton – for a total of 30 weeks in jail.