A martial arts instructor refused to be deterred from making a citizen's arrest when he was threatened with violence and had a knife held to his neck and face, a court heard yesterday.

Stephen Browne, who also works as a nightclub bouncer, maintained a headlock on a man he had spotted kicking at a shop window while he was waiting for his girlfriend, Holly Bishop, prosecutor Michael Hammond told magistrates in Harrogate, North Yorkshire.

When the man, who had produced the knife, learned the police were on their way, he ran off, discarding the weapon as he fled.

But Trevor Gill, 18, was arrested later.

He admitted possession of a knife and threatening behaviour outside the shop, in Crab Lane, Harrogate.

Gill also admitted offences of affray, theft, handling stolen property and failing to surrender to custody for an offence committed on other occasions.

Magistrate's chairman Pauline Ward told him his record and the extreme seriousness of the knife attack in a public place meant that the bench did not have sufficient powers of punishment.

She sent Gill, of Olive Walk, Harrogate, on bail to York Crown Court for sentence.