A SAMURAI sword wielding father has avoided jail after going on an booze fuelled “crusade” against legal highs.

Kevin Clarke has been spared jail after taking a 12-inch blade, described as a samurai sword or Tanto, to a legal highs shop in Southampton.

Clarke, a driver and football coach, pleaded guilty to carrying the blade, criminal damage and assault by beating.

On March 23 this year Clarke was described as “crusading” while under the influence of alcohol by a judge when he went to Lil Amsterdam in St Mary’s Street.

Recorder Nicholas Casey said that the 38-year-old had been drinking during the day with his then partner, now wife, who described him as “steadily becoming more intoxicated, aggressive and annoying”.

Southampton Crown Court also heard he left his house on several occasions and had gone to Lil Amsterdam.

Staff at the shop, which sold legal highs as well as other smoking paraphernalia, called the police on five occasions that evening due to Clarke’s behaviour when he entered the store.

On one of the occasions he went home to get a blade around 12 inches long, that was described in court as a samurai sword or Tanto blade. 

While in the store he used the handlehilt to smash a glass counter top, and on one occasions he pushed the pregnant girlfriend of a member of staff woman, who was the girlfriend of a member of staff, in the neck as he tried top exit the shop.

The blade was later found in a bin near the store after Clarke told the police where it was.

Clarke, of Maryfield, Southampton, had claimed his nine-year-old daughter had been hospitalised after taking the legal high Spice purchased from Lil Amsterdam but it was found to be untrue.

Recorder Casey said: “You were crusading, and under the influence of alcohol, against legal highs.“You were going out and coming back on more than one occasion, you entered Lil Amsterdam on a number of occasions and the staff called the police five times, 999 calls, over a relatively short period of time. You went home to seek it [the sword] out and then brought it back to the scene and committed an ongoing offence as you walked through the streets of Southampton with it concealed in your jacket.”

Clarke, who has 10 previous convictions dating from 1996 to 2000, was sentenced to nine months imprisonment suspended for 18 months, ordered to pay a £100 victim surcharge, complete 120 hours of unpaid work and attend 30 days of rehabilitation.