A schizophrenic who heard voices telling him he needed to carry a knife for protection called at Rhyl police station to say he was afraid he might use it.

When officers went to the front door of the station Mitchell Cook was found to have a kitchen knife, which had a 30-centimetre blade.

He told officers: “They are trying to kill me.”

Interviewed Cook, of Warren Road, Rhyl, said he had been walking the streets of the town and was paranoid that a group of youths was after him.

Mold Crown Court was told that he had been through a personal crisis, had stopped taking his medication and had been drinking alcohol.

Cook, aged 30, admitted possessing a bladed article in Wellington Road on November 12 and was jailed for 30 weeks.

Judge Rhys Rowlands said that the message had to go out to people in Rhyl, and elsewhere, that if they went out onto the streets carrying knives there was almost an inevitability that they would go to prison.

Prosecuting barrister Frances Willmott said that at 1.50 am the defendant turned up at Rhyl police station, rang the buzzer and said that he had a knife.

Officers arrived and he removed the knife from his top when told to do so.

He said “They are trying to kill me.”

The defendant held the knife for a few seconds and dropped it when told to do so. It had a blade of some 18 c.m..

Interviewed, he explained he was feeling paranoid, took the knife from the kitchen of his flat, and when he saw a group of youths in Wellington Road he thought they were looking for him.

He went to the police station, he said, so that he did not use the knife on them.

The court heard how he had previous convictions for 19 offences including disorder, possessing a weapon and attempted robbery.

Defending barrister Simon Killeen said that it was an unusual case.

He had deliberately taken the knife out.

But it was rare for someone in such circumstances to come to the attention of the police because he knocked on the police station door and told them over the intercom that he had it.

“This is a man with serious mental health problems,” he said.

During a personal crisis in his life he began drinking and stopped taking the medication when kept him and the public safe.

He was thinking irrationally, believing people were following him and were going to harm him.

But he had the good sense to go to the police station and surrender it before there was any confrontation.

It was not used in dangerous circumstances, he said.

Given the fact that he had served the equivalent of a two-month sentence in custody, he suggested a suspended sentence with rehabilitation.

Judge Rowlands said that that while it was not used in dangerous circumstances, it was carried in dangerous circumstances because of the condition he was in.

He was at the time on a community order for an offence of violence.

The judge told Cook: “It really was a quite fearsome potential weapon.”

In the early hours he went to the police station and said that he had a knife, and understandably a number of officers were deployed.

He was arrested and did not misbehave or issue any threats to police officers.

But it was a large knife, which had the potential to cause very serious harm or worse.

He had stopped taking his medication, had been drinking strong cider, and was out with a knife when he was “not fully in control of himself.”

Cook had personal difficulties, he said.

But he would appreciate that if he stopped taking medication and started drinking instead then he had created the situation he was in.