A knifeman caught with a cut throat razor in his pocket was thrown out of drug rehab after he fell for another resident, a court heard.

Martyn Searson was told he 'ought to be going to prison'. But judge imposed a two year community order after learning the 38-year-old was engaging well with support workers and had hopes of going to another rehab facility.

Oxford Crown Court heard Searson was pulled off a bus and arrested by police officers after they were called to reports of a man waving a knife around in Cornmarket, Oxford, on April 1.

The officers found a cut throat razor in one jacket pocket and a wrap of crack cocaine in another.

In June, Judge Michael Gledhill QC adjourned sentencing so Searson could go to a residential rehab facility.

But on Monday he was told that Searson had been asked to leave the facility eight weeks into his 12 week stint after developing a relationship with another resident in breach of the centre’s rules.

It was ‘not impressive’, the judge said, and could have resulted in him being sent to prison.

Branding Searson’s criminal record ‘appalling’, he said: “You see that door to your left. It won’t surprise you to know that goes straight down to the cells and many people would think that ought to be exactly where you go now.”

Judge Gledhill added: “Judging by the state you are in this morning you were expecting to go to prison and you jolly well ought to be going to prison on one view of this case.”

However, he noted that Searson had been ‘doing his best’ to work with addiction charity Turning Point and there was a chance of him going to another rehabilitation facility.

He said: “It seems to me that the public are at this stage best protected from further offending by you particularly the carrying of knives and being in possession of crack cocaine by my making a community order on both charges for 24 months.”

The community order was a chance that ‘many would say you shouldn’t have been given’, he said. “If you let yourself down and let me down you know exactly what is going to happen to you.”

Mitigating, Sarah McIntyre said her client had been ‘doing well’ since leaving the drug rehabilitation facility.

“He has good influences around him; people who are here in court today,” she added.

Searson, of London Place, Oxford, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to possession of a bladed article and possession of crack cocaine.

As part of his community order, he must abide by a two year drug rehabilitation order and live at a property as directed by the probation service.

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