A UNIVERSITY student who took a kitchen knife to York Minster has received a six-month suspended prison sentence.

A member of the cathedral’s police force saw Joshua Swain walking around the west end of the cathedral with the knife in his hand, said prosecutor Kathryn Reeve.

The undergraduate was behaving in an unusual way.

He alerted a passing North Yorkshire Police officer who found Swain sitting on the Minster steps with his head in his hands and the weapon beside him.

“He said he was hearing voices that told him to go to the Minster and he had the knife for his own protection,” said Ms Reeve. “He believed someone was going to harm him.”

Swain, 19, of Bootham Terrace, York, pleaded guilty to carrying a knife in public.

York magistrates told him: “This is knife crime even though you didn’t use the knife. The Minster is a big tourist attraction, with lots of people around and children were probably there in the Minster.”

They gave him a six-month prison suspended for 12 months on condition he does 100 hours’ unpaid work. They also ordered him to pay £85 prosecution costs and a £115 statutory surcharge.

For Swain, Jane Maloney said no member of the public had complained about Swain’s actions to the police and he hadn’t used the knife on anyone.

“He hasn’t gone out looking for anyone else and he hasn’t gone there to harm anyone else,” she said.

He had mental health difficulties and these were the reasons he went to the Minster, she said.

Magistrates heard that Swain had no previous convictions and read a probation service report on him before passing sentence.

The incident happened on January 31 at 4.15pm.