'You'd better be armed response' - What Hartlepool man told police during frightening four-hour siege

Adam Trainor, who was armed with a large kitchen knife, sparked the incident on Northgate at about 9pm on April 25 after an argument with his partner.

He threatened to stab the first officer who went inside the house and warned: “You’d better be armed response”, Teesside Crown Court heard.

Trainor's distressed partner flagged down two policemen when he picked up a knife. Her mother was also inside the house but left shortly after the incident started.

Anthony Pettengell, prosecuting, said: “When police attended the defendant came to the door in an agitated state and had in his hands a large kitchen knife and a rolling pin.

"He kept returning to the front window repeating those threats stating he would stab the officers in the neck if they came inside.”

Armed police and specially trained negotiators also attended and spent several hours trying to get him to surrender.

But Trainor, 32, repeated the threats, spat towards one of the policemen from the front door and threw a glass picture frame which smashed at their feet.

At 1.20am he threw two knives out the window and gave himself up five minutes later.

One of the police officers said later: “I was extremely concerned for my own and [my colleague’s] safety on initial attendance and truly believed he could have carried out those threats that he made.”

Trainor, of Oxford Road, Hartlepool, admitted affray and making threats to kill.

The court heard he has suffered metal health problems in recent years and at the time of the incident was self-medicating and had also been drinking.

He has a number of previous convictions but has since “knuckled down” getting a job as an asbestos stripper, working hard to provide for his family.

Stephen Constantine, mitigating, said: “He recognises that he was completely out of order.”

Jailing Trainor for 12 months, Judge Stephen Ashurst told him: “The officers in this case were in very real fear that some very serious harm could come to them.

"The public must understand that people who make threats to police with weapons must expect to go to prison”.

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