A SWORD-WIELDING student who smirked as he threatened a young motorist has been sent to jail for nine months.

Dipak Parmar, 19, had "tooled himself up" with an "arsenal of weapons" in his car, a court heard.

At about 1.30pm on January 25, he waved a samurai sword at a fellow student who hooted her car horn at him in a queue of traffic outside York College.

The terrified woman phoned her parents, who immediately alerted the police. When Parmar, of Station Road, Tadcaster, was stopped and searched two hours later, officers found a telescopic baton, a lock knife and a samurai sword in his car.

Prosecuting, Simon Hickey told York Crown Court, sitting in Teesside, that Parmar smirked as he unsheathed, brandished and waved a metre-long samurai sword.

Parmar pleaded guilty to affray, and possessing the baton, the knife and the sword. He was jailed for nine months

In mitigation, defence counsel Austin Newman said: "Mr Parmar accepts this must have been a terrifying and upsetting incident for the complainant. He has demonstrated genuine remorse."

Updated: 10:16 Wednesday, February 23, 2005