A MAN has been jailed for attacking a hotel porter with a steak knife during a “psychotic” episode brought on by heavy drinking.

James Stephen O’Connor, 26, from Heslington Road, in York, snuck into a staff-only area where the porter was clocking on for a night shift at the Resolution Hotel, in Whitby.

The porter turned round to see O’Connor standing in the doorway brandishing a knife. O’Connor, who had been drinking in the hotel bar, came at the porter and grabbed hold of him, waving the knife around his face and neck.

O’Connor then pointed the knife at the man’s jaw and told him to get down on his knees.

Barrister Michael Smith, prosecuting at York Crown Court, said the porter thought he was about to die.

Instead, O’Connor began making bizarre and “menacing” instructions to the terrified victim, who ran off into the bar area. O’Connor chased him but was brought under control by another staff member.”

O’Connor then left the hotel but police found him walking the streets a short time later in a “state of apparent distress”.

O’Connor admitted assault, affray and possessing a bladed article in a public place.

The incident happened on December 30 last year, when O’Connor booked himself into the hotel in Skinner Street, Whitby.

The court heard O’Connor had previous convictions for 39 offences including burglary, possessing a knife, attempted robbery, criminal damage and shoplifting. In April last year a court gave him a drugrehabilitation order.

Defence lawyer David Camige said at the time of the incident at the Resolution, O’Connor had been given leave from a mental-health retreat.

“He was having delusional thoughts and thought he could hear gun shots and people forcing the door in his room,” added Mr Camige. “He thought police were trying to kill him.”

Jailing O’Connor for two years, judge Stephen Ashurst said it was not safe to rehabilitate him in the community.