A BLADE lout who hurled racist abuse at a shopkeeper for refusing him ‘tick’ to buy alcohol has claimed that he was carrying a 12-inch long hunting knife for his OWN PROTECTION.

Multiple offender Derek King — who previously robbed a blind man on a bus — lifted up his jumper to reveal the menacing-looking weapon tucked into his shorts after being declined credit.

Greenock Sheriff Court heard how drug-fuelled 22-year-old King declared to his victim: “I’ll do you. Why won’t you give me tick?”

When he unveiled the knife to the Asian man behind the counter, he said: “I’m just showing you.”

King — who was 25 pence short of the amount he needed to buy the booze he wanted — committed the offence at the Supersave shop in Port Glasgow’s Cromdale Road on February 11.

Prosecutor Pamela Brady told how he entered the store ‘under the influence of a substance’ at 1.10pm before launching into his threatening and foul-mouthed rant. 

Mrs Brady said: “Another witness entered the shop and the accused asked him for the 25p that he was short of.

“The witness gave the accused the change, thinking that it would get him out of the premises.

“The witness had previously heard the accused shouting and swearing and making racist remarks.”

King completed his purchase and left the shop but the police had already been called with officers arriving at the scene ‘immediately’, the court heard.

Fiscal depute Mrs Brady told how King began running on seeing a police car and threw his knife away as officers chased him on foot.

She said: “The knife was recovered from a garden and it was found to have a 30 centimetre blade.”

Defence lawyer Gerry Keenan said that King’s litany of offending was ‘underpinned’ by the abuse of illicit diazepam tablets.

Mr Keenan said of his client’s knife offence: “When he takes that drug it engenders a feeling of paranoia when leaving his home. Such was his state of mind he felt the need to have some form of protection on him.

“The common thread to his offending would appear to his inability to rid himself of his dependence on diazepam.”

King was also charged with assaulting the shopkeeper, threatening him with violence, repeatedly presenting the knife at him, demanding credit and robbing him of alcohol but his not guilty plea to these allegations were accepted by the Crown.

The Telegraph told in March last year how King robbed the blind son of late Greenock Morton favourite John Boag of a £250 Dolce and Gabanna watch on a bus.

He was out on licence after being released early from prison for another matter when he committed the offence, and hailed a fresh seven-month sentence for the cruel theft as a ‘result’.

King went on to steal a £150 mobile phone just three days after being set free from that jail term.

Sheriff Iain Fleming sentenced King, of Mull Avenue, Port Glasgow, to 14 months imprisonment for the knife matter.