A courageous teenager disarmed a knifeman who was threatening to slash a group of boys playing football in York.

The youth stepped in after Mark Thomas Hawksby, 45, threatened the boys with a switch knife, York Crown Court heard.

Brooke Morrison, prosecuting, said Hawksby was talking to teenagers playing football at Wigginton Playing Fields during the evening of May 30 last year and told them he had been in the Army. Then he took exception when one of the boys saluted him.

“Do you want to get slashed with my switch blade?” he asked before leaving the playing fields on a mobility scooter.

He returned 15 minutes later with a switch blade and a 12 inch kitchen knife, said the barrister.

He told the boys: “Don’t you ….. dare” and began to wave the switch knife at them.

The teenager got behind him, pushed him over, got the kitchen knife off him and together the boys pinned Hawksby to the ground until police arrived. The boys were all aged 14 to 16.

“I think that was a very brave and public-spirited thing to do,” said Judge Simon Hickey as he ordered that the teenager receive a reward of £200 public money.

Six years ago, ex-Army man Hawksby sparked a terrorist alert when he produced a firearm in a city centre York pub.

In 2014 he armed himself with a wheel brace during a confrontation with a man carrying a knuckleduster outside a fish and chip shop in Pocklington, and in 2005 he was convicted of having an offensive weapon in public in East Yorkshire.

He has never been jailed for any offence involving a weapon.

In the latest case, Hawksby, of St Mary’s Close, Wigginton, pleaded guilty to two charges of carrying a knife in public. The court heard because of his previous convictions for having weapons in public, he faced a minimum of six months in jail.

Judge Hickey said there had been a “risk of serious disorder”. However, the recent death of Hawksby’s father was “exceptional circumstances” that enabled him to suspend the 15-month prison sentence for 18 months on condition Hawksby does 25 days’ rehabilitative activities and six months’ alcohol treatment.

Jordan Millican, defending, said the bereavement had caused Hawksby to “spiral out of control”. It had adversely affected his emotional state and led him to drink. He had struggled against alcohol all his adult life and had had a 20-year heroin and crack cocaine addiction until 18 months ago.

Hawksby accepted that going back to his house and fetching the knives was a “grave error”. “He clearly misread the jokes,” said Mr Millican.

In 2018, Hawksby sparked a full-scale terrorism alert at the Cross Keys in Goodramgate when he got out a BB gun he had just bought legally. Armed police and special branch were involved and the pub had to be evacuated.

He was given a community order for having an imitation firearm in public, as he was in 2014 for the incident outside the fish and chip shop. In 2005 he got a conditional discharge for having an offensive weapon in public.