A MAN has been jailed after he pointed an air rifle into a police officer’s face.

Matthew Luke Smith, 41, said “the first person getting near me is getting shot” when police responded to his phone call in the early hours, said Rob Galley, prosecuting.

He had been drinking vodka and taking drugs.

Armed police were called to the incident during which Smith also had a BB gun and threatened to shoot himself.

One of the officers grabbed the barrel of the air rifle Smith was pointing at his face and disarmed him.

“During the aftermath of that incident, it was clear there were numerous weapons in the defendant’s premises, on the balcony and in the house,” said Mr Galley.

“I am concerned about the police,” the Recorder of York, Judge Sean Morris, told Smith at York Crown Court. “They were there doing their job.

“It must have been utterly terrifying for the police.”

Smith, of Gilderdyke, Scarborough, pleaded guilty to affray and two charges of possessing an imitation firearm with intent to cause fear of violence. He also admitted possessing a knuckleduster and a small knife on a necklace related to an earlier incident when he was stopped in the street in Scarborough.

He was jailed for 30 months.

Defence barrister Ismael Uddin said Smith had told him: “I have taken drugs all my life, I am a criminal, I have got nowhere to go, nothing to do.”

Smith had told him he couldn’t get out of the circle of taking drugs and committing offences and that he wanted to be in prison so he could get off drugs.

Neither of the firearms were loaded.

“The major threat was to himself, but the police wouldn’t have known that,” the judge said.

Mr Galley said in his phone call on August 9, Smith talked about his mental health and threatened to shoot officers and himself.

At 2.14am police went to his home and were confronted with him wielding a long-barrelled weapon on his balcony.

He told them to drive off and they did, hearing as they went a bang behind them.

Armed police were called out and at 3.51am they took action that ended the stand-off.

The weapons in the house included many knives.