A MAN who stabbed his victim with a multi-tool has been locked up after a judge told him "you should only have a knife in your hands when you are cooking or eating".

He was jailing Michael Bennison, 37, for wounding a bereaved son three times with the tool.

A York Crown Court jury heard Bennison caused the victim a collapsed lung, and he broke the victim’s eye-socket by kneeing him.

Bennison, 37, has a history of violence and has other convictions for injuring people with knives.

Bennison told the jury he had the multi-tool in his pocket for work purposes and only took it out to deter the victim when the bereaved son confronted him in a car park.

“You especially know how dangerous blades are with your experience,” the Recorder of York, Judge Sean Morris told him. “You should never have a knife in your hand when you are in a public place. The only reason you should have a knife in your hands is when you are cooking or eating.”

Bennison, previously of York and now of Tempest Road, Leeds, pleaded guilty to wounding and was jailed for three years.

He denied charges of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and having a blade in public without a reasonable excuse and was acquitted by a jury on both charges at the end of a week-long trial.

His barrister Chris Dunn said the jury must have accepted Bennison’s account that he had acted in self-defence but had gone too far.

“Be careful when you get out (of prison),” the judge told him. “If you had been convicted by the jury it would have been a 16-year extended sentence.”

The bereaved son had dropped a crate of beer when he and Bennison had been in the till queue in a Spar shop in Sherburn-in-Elmet, leading to the two exchanging words.