TWO teenage heroin users who threatened a 16-year-old boy with an eight-inch Gurkha knife were sentenced yesterday – but a court ordered the weapon should not be confiscated due to its sentimental value.

Ujwal Rai, 18, and Sandip Limbu, 19, who are sons of Gurkha soliders, brandished the knife in Furlong Close, Blackbird Leys, on Boxing Day in an attempt to settle a drug debt.

The pair admitted possessing an offensive weapon in a public place at an earlier hearing.

Peter Coombe, prosecuting, said Rai, of Church Cowley Road, Cowley, took his father’s knife, which had a three-inch-wide blade, and both defendants used it to threaten a 16-year-old they believe owed them £15 or £20.

Mr Coombe said the knife came from Mr Rai Senior’s time of service in the armed forces with the Gurkhas.

The court heard unemployed Limbu, of Folkestone in Kent, no longer used heroin and Rai is on a methadone prescription. Recorder Susan Evans sentenced each of them to 20 weeks’ youth detention, suspended for 18 months, with £150 costs.

Limbu was given a drug-rehabilitation requirement (DRR) for six months and 100 hours’ unpaid work. Rai was given 150 hours’ unpaid work but was not given a DRR due to the lack of course places in the Thames Valley.