A man found with a knife outside a Rhyl nightclub has been jailed.

Defendant Otis Thomson denied taking the knife out with him.

He told Mold Crown Court that he had been out with friends for his brother’s birthday party, was concerned that one of the others had a knife, and he disarmed him.

Thomson said that he placed it in his pocket intending to dispose of it and it was found in his pocket when doormen searched him as he tried to return into the club.

But Judge Niclas Parry rejected his story and Thomson, 27, of Porth y Llys in Rhyl, was jailed for six months.

Judge Parry said: “It has to be understood that carrying knives in public will lead to immediate custody.

“The public must see headlines ‘carry a knife and you go to custody’,” he said.

The judge said that it was recognised nationwide that the harm caused by the carrying of knives in public places had reached levels that had never been seen before.

North Wales had suffered a number of serious injuries and fatalities from knife crime.

“People look to the court to protect their young people from the consequences of carrying knives in public, he said.

Thomson had attempted to carry a knife into a nightclub and was rightly refused entry.

He was searched and a “fearsome weapon with a six inch blade” was found upon him.

On his own admission he was highly intoxicated.

“You had that knife when you were not in control of your senses.

“In that condition there was every risk that you would act in a way that you would not normally act. That is the danger.”

It was a knife that could have caused serious disorder on licensed premises where people were drunk in the early hours of the morning.

Thomson, he said, had previously been cautioned for possessing a weapon in 2008.

Prosecuting barrister Jemma Gordon told how in the early hours of October 28 doormen at Hidden bar told police officers that a man had refused to let them search him and he had a large knife.

Police recovered the knife and he became agitated and aggressive towards door staff.

In evidence, Thomson, a father of three, said that he rarely went out to clubs but was out that night for his brother’s 20th birthday party.

The group had been to Cheeky and then to Hidden and when there he realised that one of the group had a knife and feared someone would get hurt.

He took it and intended to dispose of it.

It was put in his pocket, he went out to make a phone call and when he tried to return he was refused entry.

Thomson said he was going to go back to Cheeky for another drink but he was stopped by the police.

But the judge said that he had not reported that he had the knife to door staff or the police and he had ample opportunity to dispose of the knife but had not done so.

He had not said on the night, or when later interviewed by the police, that he had disarmed another person for safety reasons.

The defendant had tried to persuade the court that he had his wits about him - but then said that he did not take the opportunities to dispose of the knife because he was intoxicated.

Defending barrister Richard Edwards said that the defendant lived with his grandmother.

He had two children with his partner, an older child for an earlier partner, was working and was planning to get a house with his family.

The defendant had not been out socially since New Year’s Eve, he had a good work ethic, and had been working in Norway at one stage.