Man arrested by armed police over garden tools on belt strap

A man who was returning from his allotment with a trug of vegetables and gardening tools strapped to his belt was arrested by armed police, after a member of the public said they had seen "a man wearing khaki clothing and in possession of a knife".

- Hannah Al-Othman

Samuel Rowe, 35, a technical manager at a theatre, had returned from his allotment in Manchester earlier this month, and decided to trim his hedge with one of his tools, a Japanese garden sickle, when police turned up on his doorstep.

"I just heard shouting behind me, and then two armed officers shouting at me to drop the knife," he said. "And then they turned me around, pushed me up against my house, cuffed me, and then they arrested me, put me in the back of the van."

The tools he had on his belt, he said, were a Niwaki Hori Hori gardening trowel in a canvas sheath, and an Ice Bear Japanese gardener's sickle.