A 21-MONTH prison sentence has been handed to a Cumbria man who threatened to chop off a police officer’s head during a two-hour stand-off.

Anthony Michael Grogan also held the blade to his own throat during the incident at his Lake District home. The 25-year-old, of Thornbarrow Road, Windermere, began brandishing a knife after refusing entry to the police.

Officers attended just before 6am on February 8, to serve a community breach warrant upon him. But Grogan responded by wielding a knife from inside his address.

He threw items including an ornament and a picture frame at them, lunged out of a window with the weapon and threatened to “chop” one officer’s head off during the 120-minute incident. Only when a negotiator and Grogan’s solicitor arrived at the scene was he finally persuaded to give himself up and hand over the knife.

Grogan was sentenced at Carlisle Crown Court today and jailed for 21 months. He had admitted charges of affray, criminal damage to a set of handcuffs and a racially aggravated harassment charge over abusive comments he made to one PC.

Grogan, a man with a history of behaving violently towards police, was said to be sorry for his actions. But Judge Peter Davies told him he had caused a “protracted, deeply anxious, deeply frightening incident”.

Superintendent Rob O’Connor, of Cumbria Constabulary, said: “My officers attended to arrest Mr Grogan as he was wanted on warrant. He caused significant disruption that morning on Thornbarrow Road, with a number of police officers deployed due to his actions.

“I welcome the sentence today, as people like Grogan should not believe it is okay to threaten my officers with a knife and throw objects at them without facing consequences for their action. He can reflect on that during his prison sentence.

“Police officers do not go to work each day to be threatened by the likes of Grogan. They go to work to protect others, and increasingly are having to protect themselves.

“Grogan should be ashamed of his actions, and his sentence should send a strong message that threatening police officers with acts of violence will not be tolerated by the courts and wider society.”