A MAN accused of threatening a policewoman with a large kitchen knife claimed the weapon simply fell from his trousers.

Heroin and crack cocaine user Carl Thomas insisted to a jury that he didn't brandish the knife after falling over while being pursued by WPC Kate Platten.

In the witness box at Swindon Crown Court, he claimed that he hadn't even seen the young officer who had been chasing him, let alone been caught up by her.

He said he was running away from the police because he still had the bread knife tucked down the back of his trousers, following an earlier incident.

Police were called to the Abalone Guest House on Sheppard Street shortly before 11pm on June 16 last year, after a man reported an alleged crime involving Thomas.

Thomas said he had exchanged words with the man.

When he went to leave the premises he had been waiting outside holding a house brick above his head. Thomas then got a knife from a friend's room and held the knife at his side to frighten the man, who dropped the brick and ran off.

Thomas chased after him until the man fell over and kicked him a couple of times until he apologised.

But when the man returned half an hour later in the back of a police car and pointed at him, Thomas realised he faced being arrested with the weapon on him.

He said: "I started to run. The floor was wet as it had been raining that night and as I tried to turn the corner I slipped on the pavement and I fell to the ground.

"I got up and I carried on running down Bridge Street.

"As I was running I heard a female say I had dropped a knife."

He said that at no stage did the officer get hold of him or within reaching distance after he fell.

He claimed he didn't even see her as he ran.

Thomas, who told police he had a £30 a day heroin habit and also occasionally took crack cocaine, said he had admitted what he had done wrong. He said he had pleaded guilty to having a bladed article and to an affray, relating to brandishing the knife and kicking the man earlier.

He added he would have admitted threatening the officer if it had happened.

In cross examination, prosecutor George Threlfall put to him: "Having seen how easy it was to intimidate someone half an hour earlier, you thought you would carry on with this little wheeze didn't you?

"That young woman police officer was just stopped in her tracks wasn't she?"

But Thomas replied "No she wasn't," insisting that he had not held the knife towards the officer but simply dropped it.

Thomas, of The Circle, Pine-hurst, denies assault with intent to resist arrest.

The case continues.

Jamie Hill