A MAN involved in a rooftop stand-off with police was caught with a knife and meat cleaver after a drama in a bank staff just ten days later.

Ian Duncan ripped of tiles and hurled them at officers, before trying to set fire to the felt underneath.

He was finally talked down from the house in High Street, Skelton, east Cleveland, where he was arrested, questioned and given bail.

Duncan was in NatWest in Middlesbrough on October 5, carrying a kitchen knife with a six-inch blade.

A worried cashier raised the alarm, and when the 39-year-old was detained, police found the cleaver in his jacket sleeve, Teesside Crown Court was told.

John Nixon, mitigating, said Duncan had not been taking his medication and would not have committed the offences if he had not been mentally ill.

Duncan, of Harford Street, Middlesbrough, admitted affray, two charges of possessing a bladed article, common assault, damaging property and threatening to damage property.

He was given a 12-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, with 40 days of rehabilitation activity.

Judge Peter Armstrong told him: "You need to know, and have always in the back of your mind, that if you feel to keep up your treatment and you end up reoffending, then you end up in prison."

The court heard that Duncan – who has more than 100 offences on his record, including carrying knives and a machete – has suffered from schizophrenia, and had problems with drugs and alcohol.

Mr Nixon said: "Various events in recent times – the deaths of his brother and father – had a major impact on his well-being, and contributed to his general decline.