A COMPANY director brandished a butterfly knife as a business dispute boiled over in a residential street.

Emrah Ozan, 48, brandished the knife in the late-night confrontation, said Stephanie Hancock, prosecuting at York Crown Court.

At 1.20am on December 13, he went to his business partner’s home in Tostig Avenue, Acomb, and from the street outside rang him. He said: “I will smash you, smash your house. If you were a man, you would come outside.”

Then he banged on the door and shouted, waking up the partner’s tenants and all three men came out of the house. Ozan took the knife out of his back pocket and brandished it at the men, the court heard.

Ozan put the knife back into his pocket, and in the scuffle that followed, one of the business partner’s tenants was hit by an iron bar, giving him a minor injury.

Ozan, of York Road, Kirk Hammerton, pleaded guilty to affray and carrying a knife in public. He was given a four-month prison sentence suspended for 12 months on condition he does 100 hours’ unpaid work. He must also pay £150 compensation to the tenant who was injured.

“It was disgraceful behaviour over some dispute with a civil debt,” Judge Simon Hickey said.

Ozan’s barrister Lydia Pearce did not give any mitigation after the judge indicated the sentence he would give.

Ms Hancock said Ozan and the Acomb man had known each other for a couple of years and had a commercial enterprise together. They disagreed over who owned the company and a transaction.

Ozan phoned the Acomb man on the evening of December 12, and afterwards, thinking nothing more would happen that day, the Acomb man went to bed. But then Ozan phoned him in the early hours. The Acomb man was so alarmed by the call, he immediately rang police.

Ozan told an officer the knife was a “fake”.

A probation report before the court said Ozan regretted his actions.

He had been drinking before going to the street, but didn’t think drink was to blame.