A THIRTEEN-year-old boy was forced to hand over his bike in a Carlisle park by a man armed with a Samurai sword, a jury heard.

At the city’s crown court, Jamie Wilson, 31, has gone on trial accused of robbery and possessing a bladed article in a public place – namely a Sumurai sword – on August 28 last year.

The prosecution says he threatened the schoolboy with the blade as he forced him to hand over his bike. The defendant, of Miller’s Close, Botcherby, denies both charges.

David Bentley, prosecuting, said the boy was riding his bike with a friend who was on foot at around 9pm.

As they went along a footpath from Keenan Park which goes through a tunnel beneath the railway line, they came to an open area known as the Arches.

At this point, they saw the defendant cycling past them.

“He pulled up in front of them, causing them to stop in their tracks,” said the barrister. Wilson then said to the boy: “Give me a look at your bike.’

The teenager got off his bike and laid it on the ground.

The defendant got off his bike and on to the boy’s. The prosecutor continued: “[The boy] described the defendant pulling out a massive blade… and holding it up for him to see.”

The blade was about three feet long. The boy heard the defendant ask: “What do you think I could do with this?” Mr Bentley told the jury. The boy said he replied: “Hurt someone.”

Understandably, said the barrister, the boy was scared.

After returning the Samurai sword to its holder, Wilson cycled off on the teenager’s bike, leaving his own behind, said Mr Bentley.

The boy told police he would not have let the defendant take his bike had it not been for him producing the sword. He took the defendant’s bike home and told his mother what happened.

Police went to look for Wilson in Botcherby and inside his property found the Samurai sword.

The boy’s bike was later found outside a local property by police, who arrested the defendant in the street nearby.

When interviewed, he denied robbing the teenager. “He in effect said that the two had swapped bikes,” said Mr Bentley, adding that Wilson claimed it was the boy who suggested this. “As for the Samurai sword, he was simply moving it from his father’s home to the address where he was living,” said Mrs Bentley.

“He denies using it to suggest a threat [to the boy].”

Wilson said he simply showed the sword to the boy and his friend when they asked what it was.

The jury were told that when the boy spoke to police, he identified the man with the sword who took his bike as somebody known locally as Slap. Wilson himself confirmed to police that his nickname is Slappy.

The trial continues.