A YOB with a 20-year criminal career is back behind bars for a three-month spree involving threatening behaviour and weapons.

Brian Birmingham was already on a suspended prison sentence for being part of an armed mob when he got involved in more trouble this summer.

On June 20, he was seen in Varo Terrace, Stockton, with a kitchen knife with an 20cm blade by a woman with her seven-year-old granddaughter who called the police.

After appearing in court and being given bail, the 38-year-old abused a council anti-social behaviour officer who was helping police deal with a suspect package near the town’s High Street.

And on August 13, police received a 999 call about a man acting erratically on Carr Street, and found Birmingham lying on the ground apparently unconscious.

After being roused, he lunged at an officer with a pair of scissors, and threatened to punch her colleague.

After being taken to the University Hospital of North Tees, he racially abused another PC who had been called to supervise him.

Kelleigh Lodge, mitigating, said Birmingham has been diagnosed with bi-polar disorder and has suffered with mental health problems for “a number of years”.

“He has little recollection of what took place,” said Miss Lodge. “He can’t explain his actions or saying the words he did.

“He can only stress how sorry he is to both the civilians and the police officers on each of those occasions.”

Birmingham, of Suffolk Street, Stockton, admitted two charges of threatening behaviour, racially-aggravated threatening behaviour, having a blade and an offensive weapon and was jailed for 18 months.