A man found wielding an axe in a crowd waiting to meet Queen Elizabeth has been jailed for six years.
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Daniel Bleazard, 34, was arrested just yards away from where the queen was scheduled to begin her walkabout at Huddersfield’s railway station last May after police officer spotted him carrying a 3ft felling axe.
Judge Jonathan Durham-Hall QC sentenced the father-of-three from Huddersfield to three years in jail for having an article with a blade and a further 18 months for breaching his anti-social behaviour order.
Blezard – who was tackled by officers just half an hour before the queen and her husband Prince Philip were due to arrive at the station – was also sentenced to another 18 months on separate charges of having an article with a blade and going equipped for theft.
Judge Durham-Hall said the sentences should be added together, to make a total of six years in prison.
Despite insisting he only had the axe because his chainsaw was broken and he needed to chop wood, the judge said Bleazard was an “angry and aggressive man with a deep, idiosyncratic hatred of authority” and had only taken the weapon to provoke armed police at the scene.
He said: “You wanted to brandish that weapon in as close a proximity to Her Majesty as was possible. There cannot be any other legitimate explanation for your being in that crowd.
“You wanted to see how close you could get before you provoked a reaction from the armed police.”
The judge, who was sitting as Bradford Crown Court, also expressed his astonishment that Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) officials had previously tried to throw out the case against Bleazard, and it was only continued after the local police inspector protested.
Judge Durham-Hall added: “It is, I find, absolutely bewildering that there was any thought whatsoever given to discontinuing any part of this case. Others will have to make their judgment about that.”
