PCC`s dire warning becomes reality as axe-wielding `killer clown` jailed

An axe-wielding prankster is thought to have become the first person given a prison sentence in the wake of the `killer clown` craze that swept Britain last year. Michael March, 18, has been jailed for six months after he chased a pregnant woman the night before Hallowe`en. A court heard how he terrified a couple walking past him after banging the foot-long axe on the floor in South Shields just after 9pm on October 30. The woman, who was 22 weeks pregnant, threw a brick at him in an attempt to defend herself before he ran off. Judge Jamie Hill QC said: “Brandishing an axe and threatening people in the street is serious whatever the context.” The prison sentence brought back the warning by Northumbria police and crime commissioner (PCC) Dame Vera Baird who expressed fears the craze “could land people in jail”. At the height of the commotion last October, the former Solicitor General said: “If they [the clowns] are going to frighten people they can expect to be charged with public order offences. “If they are going to carry a weapon, even if it is to be silly, they are going to be charged with carrying a bladed instrument, so they are already in the territory where they are looking at prison, if they are not careful so really they should do none of it.” Dame Vera, chair of the Associations of PCCs, also advised retailers to adopt an `adults only` policy for selling clown costumes to “avoid further incidents” and so help slow the spread of the US-inspired craze. At Newcastle Crown Court this week, Nicholas Rooke, prosecuting, said that after the police were called they traced March via CCTV and found him with the axe and a clown mask in his backpack. “He claimed it was a prank saying he had himself been chased by killer clowns in Gateshead and he thought he would scare people as part of a prank,” he said. Mr Rooke said the pregnant woman, who had been walking with her partner, had not given a statement as “she did not want the stress of court to affect her any further”. Sentencing him, Judge Hill said it was so serious that only a custodial sentence was appropriate. “The fact you were wearing a clown mask is an aggravating factor because it increased the fear they would have experienced and secondly it was a way of disguising who you were,” he said. March had previously admitted possession of a bladed article. Vic Laffey, defending, said March had no previous convictions and that he lived with his grandparents and helped care for his grandfather. He said he accepted his actions had been “foolish and reckless” and that it must have been a frightening incident. “When he was apprehended his first words were `I was not going to hurt anyone`,” he said. “This was a Halloween prank gone horribly wrong.” He had tried to convince the judge that he should have avoided jail, as at the time of the offence he was 17 years old. The craze that began in the US last summer, and swept the UK, led to a deluge of calls to Childline from youngsters left terrified by the sinister phenomenon as well as dozens of reports to police. On October 7, a teenager who `laughed at the law` became the first person in the UK to be fined over the craze after dressing in a horror outfit to stare at infant school children from a pedestrian bridge. FACTFILE: `KILLER CLOWN` CRAZY TALK From Stephen King`s 1986 book It to Batman`s Joker, clowns have long since been the subject of horror films and books. Charles Dickens even wrote about a disturbing one in The Pickwick Papers in 1836. But the creepy figure blurred the lines of fiction and crossed into reality when serial killer John Wayne Gacy, who killed at least 33 people between 1972 and 1978, was known as the Killer Clown because he used to dress as in a costume for children`s parties and fundraising events. The current craze started in the US last August when residents of Greenville in South Carolina said that people dressed as clowns were trying to lure children into the woods. One woman called the police t