A CRIMINAL who turned up at a care home holding a kitchen knife has been jailed for 12 months after telling a worker his name.

Bolton Crown Court heard how Michelle Darcy was working at the home for teenagers in Wellington Street, Farnworth, on New Year’s Day when there was a knock on the door at 11.20pm.

Lindsay Thomas, prosecuting, said when she answered it there was a man, wearing a bob hat with a scarf pulled up over his face, and holding a large knife with a nine-inch blade.

“Tell Joey I’m going to kill him,” he said.

No-one of that name lived there, but the knifeman told her he wanted to search the rooms.

He made no attempt to do so and did not threaten Ms Darcy with the knife, but before he left he asked her if she wanted his name.

When she said yes, he revealed he was called Ryan Raymond Marsh.

“I feel alarmed that someone was on the doorstep with a knife", she later said in a statement.

Police were called and Marsh, aged 25, of Coniston Avenue, Farnworth, was arrested.

The court heard he has a lengthy criminal record, including for carrying weapons.

He pleaded guilty to the new offence of possessing a knife in public.

Nick Ross, defending, described the incident as a “bizarre offence”.

“He struggles to explain it,” he said, adding that Marsh has been drinking and had gone seeking a man whom his father was in dispute with, wrongly thinking he lived at the care home address.

“He is relieved to learn that Ms Darcy didn’t feel threatened,” said Mr Ross.

“It is quite remarkable that he gave his name, without which he would probably not have been detected.”

He was sentenced to 12 months in jail.

“You have a very bad record at your youthful age and it is the only proper sentence I can pass,” Recorder Craig Osborne told Marsh.