A DRUG-addicted shoplifter who produced a meat cleaver when confronted by staff, is behind bars for three and a half years.

Burnley Crown Court heard Jason Hayfield, 29, later told police the two women were mistaken and it had just been tin foil which he pulled from the front of his trousers.

Hayfield was told by a judge the woman must have been terrified and there had to be custodial sentence.

Judge Raymond Bennett added: "Shop people have to be protected. There is far too much stealing to feed drug habits and too often people in shops are threatened by people like you."

Hayfield, then of Hammerton Green, Bacup, and now of Peel Street, Padiham, admitted robbery.

John O'Shea, prosecuting, said in April, supervisor Diane Watling and assistant Angela Belshaw were working at the Co-op in Irwell Street, Bacup.

The defendant put two bottles of whisky into his coat and Miss Belshaw approached him and asked for the bottles back.

He stopped in front of Miss Watling, put his hand inside his coat and she presumed he was going to hand the bottles over. Instead, he pulled out a 12in butcher's meat cleaver which was 5in wide.

He took a couple of steps forward, swiped the knife in front of himself. Hayfield then ran off.

Mr O'Shea said police took stills from the store's CCTV film. They went to Hammerton Green and arrested the defendant.

He denied the robbery, said he was barred from the shop and claimed he had pulled out tin foil from down the front of his trousers. Anthony Cross, defending, said much of Hayfield's record was for trivial offences of dishonesty.

The meat cleaver was an aggravating feature, but he never intended to use it, only to frighten somebody.

Hayfield was not a normal person because of a number of things that had happened in his life. He had developed paranoia and had had treatment.

Mr Cross said the defendant had been a prisoner at Strangeways during the riots and had seen the strongest prisoners inflicting violence on the weakest.