Drunken Leeds thug spared jail after lunging at young female with a knife

William McNeill was already on a suspended sentence when he tried to attack the pair at an address in Leeds where his on/off girlfriend lived.

Prosecutor Andrew Semple said the pair had been seeing each other intermittently since 2019, and he had turned up intoxicated at her home on October 4, 2020.

She let him in and he fell asleep on the sofa, but when the woman’s daughter turned up with her friend, they tried to tell him to leave.

He became “immediately argumentative and began shouting”, Mr Semple told Leeds Crown Court.

McNeill then got up and grabbed a knife from the kitchen counter.

The daughter and her friend began heading up the stairs before McNeill lunged at the daughter’s chest with the knife, but fortunately failed to make contact.

They went to her bedroom, barricaded themselves in and called 999.

The woman then hid the knife from McNeill before he left, but he punched her first.

The police found him at a friend’s house and arrested him.

The 22-year-old, of Marlborough Gardens, Leeds, admitted a charge of affray.

He has five previous convictions for nine offences including criminal damage and making threats with a blade.

He was given a 24-week sentence suspended for two years in March 2020 for assaulting an emergency worker.

A probation report found that he took full responsibility for his latest offence, but said he could not clearly remember the incident having downed a bottle of vodka and four cans of lager that day.

Having adjourned the case for several days so he could decide his fate, Judge Robin Mairs opted not to jail him.

He gave him a 16-month sentence suspended for 24 months, ordered to enrol in a domestic violence awareness course and gave him 150 hours of unpaid work.

He told McNeill: “Let me spell it out to you, if you breach the order or commit any further offence you will be brought back in front of me, and I will send you to Armley (HMP Leeds).”