An axeman caught with the weapon stuffed down his trousers later threatened to decapitate police officers, a court heard.

During a two month rampage, Joseph Shallis, who was suffering from a psychotic episode at the time, threatened to pour petrol on police officers, racially abused a Polish woman on a bus and was verbally abusive to innocent passers-by.

The problems began on October 10 last year, when the 56-year-old was arrested for public disorder then released on bail. He was caught with a weapon on October 19 but again released on bail.

On October 30, he was drunk on the S1 bus going towards Witney when he verbally abused a Polish woman – telling her: “Go back home. I was born here, you weren’t.” He was said to have been waving a bottle of whisky around.

The next day, he was arrested for disorderly behaviour at the Milton under Wychwood Co-op store.

On November 3, he was drunk again and racially abusing a lady at a bus stop. On November 20, he was arrested for spitting at a police officer.

Ten days later, on November 30, he was caught with an axe down his trousers and later threatened to chop a police officer’s head off.

Finally, on December 7, he was arrested for assaulting emergency workers and public disorder. He was said to have called the policemen ‘d***heads’ and threatened to pour petrol on an officer – despite being nowhere near any fuel at the time.

Summing up the catalogue of chaos, an incredulous Judge Nigel Daly asked rhetorically: “What on earth was he doing on bail?”

He later said: “I cannot understand how he kept being given bail and reoffending and reoffending and reoffending. It might have been nice [for] him to have got bail but it wouldn’t have been nice for all those people who have been assaulted and insulted because he was released on bail.”

The judge deferred sentence for three months after hearing that Shallis had been suffering from a psychotic episode at the time and had not been in trouble since. His mental health had broken down after the death of his mother and, after a decade of abstinence, he turned back to drink.

Gordanna Austin, mitigating, said her client was now living with his brother and engaging with addiction services and doctors.

Judge Daly told the court: “I’m going to defer sentence for three months. In that three months he will commit no further offences, he will engage with Turning Point and when it comes to sentence in three months’ time I want a full report – up to date – from the probation service as to how he’s been doing during the period of deferment.”

Shallis, of Canal Street, Oxford, pleaded guilty at earlier hearings to assaulting emergency workers, threatening behaviour, disorderly behaviour and assault.

He will return to court on February 11.

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