A REDDITCH man who threatened to cut a young boy's fingers with a Stanley knife to stop him being cheeky has been jailed.

Daniel Thomas, aged 27, was seen sitting in his car drinking beer and smoking cannabis near the Matchborough Centre by four boys out on their bikes at 8pm on the evening of September 13 last year, Worcester Crown Court was told.

Genevieve Moss, prosecuting, said Thomas told them he was looking for a man who owed him some money and offered them £10 to help find him.

When the search failed, they went back to see Thomas, who started making derisory comments to them.

They talked back and he got out of his car with the knife. He grabbed one of the boys, who was aged 11, and as his hand was on the handlebar of his bicycle, held it across the back of four fingers.

The boy rode off and his mother called the police. Thomas was arrested at his home in Matchborough Way and police found the knife and £20 worth of cannabis on the premises.

Thomas pleaded guilty to having a bladed article in a public place, assault and possessing cannabis.

Thomas, who was not legally represented in court, said he had forgotten he had the knife with him from his job as a plasterer and he had just wanted to stop the boy "playing up." He said he had not intended anyone to get hurt.

Judge Nicolas Cartwright said the boy had luckily only suffered a superficial injury to the back of four fingers but he had been badly affected psychologically.

Thomas, he said, had clearly been under the influence of drink and drugs and was looking for a man he wanted some money from when he interacted with the boys in a way that was totally inappropriate.

"They responded with a bit of cheek and you got out the Stanley knife and threatened to cut them up," the judge told Thomas.

"The really serious aspect of this is that you produced the knife in a way that was obviously dangerous. You held it to the back of the child's hand in order to scare him."

Thomas was jailed for a total of eight months.