Witney man grabbed kitchen knives after attack by stranger

Leventa Borka, 41, was found guilty last month of having the three knives when he approached a female member of the public in Lowell Place, Witney, on December 21 last year and asked her to call the police.

The defendant, who had a Taser pointed at him by the officers who responded to the woman’s emergency call, had denied the offences on the grounds that he had a reasonable excuse to have the blades.

He claimed to have picked up the kitchen knives after he was attacked outside his home by a stranger.

But the jury disagreed that it amounted to a defence, finding him guilty of the charges.

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Sentencing him at Oxford Crown Court on Tuesday (July 4), judge Recorder John Bate-Williams said: “A man with a knife is, clearly, potentially dangerous.

“A drunk man with a knife, let alone three knives, is far more dangerous because of the risk that, under the influence of drink, [your] judgement will be impaired and you could choose to use the knives to cause injury or even death.”

He rehearsed Borka's claim that he had been punched for ‘no reason’ by an unidentified assailant at the door of his home, then gone inside to pick up some knives from the kitchen in order to defend himself and gone back outside to find the police.

“Your account didn’t seem to me to tie up with the discovery of blood stains on your bedding when [the police] searched your accommodation; but that is of little relevance now,” he added.

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Borka, of Lowell Place, Witney, was described as remorseful, telling the probation officer who prepared a pre-sentence report that, in drink, he had ‘made a big mistake’. He had not slept for three days before the offence took place.

In mitigation, Eiran Reilly said: “Really, what he’s done either it’s the alcohol or he’s been struck in the head.”

His client was in work and had one, dissimilar, previous conviction for a driving offence. “This isn’t a man who goes around committing offence,” the advocate said.

Recorder Bate-Williams imposed four months’ imprisonment suspended for a year, with unpaid work and a requirement that he wears an alcohol abstinence tag for 90 days that will monitor whether he has a drink.

He was ordered to pay £500 in costs to the Crown Prosecution Service, which was represented during the sentencing hearing by barrister Matthew Knight. The knives were forfeited to the police and will be destroyed.

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