CATERING worker Stephen Brooks threatened an Army head chef with a 10-inch kitchen knife after suffering a regime of bullying, Salisbury Crown Court heard.

Brooks, 36, of Raines Park, London, had pleaded guilty to two charges of threats to kill dating from an incident at the Westdown Army Camp near Tilshead, near Devizes, on March 4.

Colin Meeke, prosecuting, told Judge Keith Cutler last week that when Brooks arrived at the camp on February 28 there was a party going on in honour of a departing member of staff. The head chef was extremely drunk and was so offensive to Brooks that his friends made him apologise the next day.

The chef duly apologised but Brooks became the butt of provocative behaviour until, on the night in question, the chef woke up in bed to find Brooks standing over him. Brooks told him to get dressed and come outside with him to fight it out. The chef noticed Brooks was holding a large kitchen knife and began to struggle with Brooks.

He called for other members of staff and when another catering worker arrived Brooks shouted to him 'if you go and get help I'll kill you as well'.

Brooks was overpowered and pinned down, although by this time he had dropped the knife.

David Scott, defending, said Brooks had gone to the camp in a state of extreme emotional depression. He had been living with his wife and stepson in his mother-in-law's home and his marriage had suffered.

Because of his own unhappy childhood, Brooks valued his own family life and when his relationship with his wife broke down, he took a catering job with the Army.

But instead of getting his own room he found himself billeted with other workers, and because of the bad start at the drunken party, he was the butt of constant digs.

"They would throw cigarette ends at him," said Mr Scott. "It was at the level of boarding school bullying, not the sort of behaviour you expect from grown men."

Mr Scott said Brooks' only intention was self-harm.

"His initial conversation was not of threats to kill and he only made the threats after he was restrained and the knife been dropped," he said.

He said Brooks is now on a course of anti-depressants and is back with his family.

Judge Cutler sentenced him to 100 hours' community punishment on each charge, to run concurrently.