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A busy road was closed for hours after a man threw bricks from a building during a stand off with police.
Lewis Harrop, 27, who suffers with mental health problems, climbed onto scaffolding on a building on Oldham Road, near the Royal Mail sorting office close to the city centre.
Harrop eventually came down voluntarily three hours later, after threatening to jump.
During the incident – on Friday, December 21 last year – Harrop started shouting that ‘everybody was against him’, and that he had tried to get help but hadn’t received any.
He shouted to members of the public passing by, and threw bricks and stones in their direction, Manchester Crown Court heard. No one was hurt.
(Image: Manchester Evening News)
Harrop, from Miles Platting, also threatened to throw bricks at cars parked in a nearby garage.
He came down from the scaffolding at about 6.50pm, and the incident was said to have caused ‘significant’ disruption to a main route into the city centre just before Christmas.
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More than a dozen police officers, specialist negotiators and two fire engines also had to be called.
Earlier that month, on December 5, Harrop turned up at Manchester Royal Infirmary.
He was later told by mental health nurses that he didn’t need to be admitted to hospital, the court heard.
After being told that Harrop became angry, and threatened to stab people sat in the hospital waiting room, prosecutor Suzanne Hargreaves said.
He said: “Get the body bags ready. Ring the police. I’m ready to go to prison.”
Harrop was later fined for the incident, and released.
Days later, on December 8, he was found to have three knives in a rucksack, after approaching a police officer asking for help.
At first, he claimed he had the knives for work. He was taken to the MRI, but they refused to help him following the earlier incident.
Defending, Adrian Farrow said Harrop has been diagnosed with schizophrenia.
He described the incidents as a ‘cry for help’, and said the defendant as ‘extremely unwell at that time’.
But Mr Farrow conceded that Harrop’s mental health problems have been made worse by the defendant’s ‘misuse of drugs’.
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He said that the defendant has now made a ‘fairly remarkable change’ since being remanded into prison in May, taking his medication and making ‘good progress’.
Judge Elizabeth Nicholls told Harrop she accepted his behaviour was affected by his mental health problems, but said it was ‘not the best way of going about’ getting help.
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Referencing the scaffolding incident, the judge said: “It caused a public nuisance, and it must have been terrifying for those that were looking on, terrified for their own safety, and terrified for your safety.”
Harrop, of Droitwich Road, Miles Platting, was jailed for 23 months.
He pleaded guilty to three counts of having a bladed article, one public order offence and one count of breaching a suspended sentence.
