Man had slash-hook outside school

A six-month jail sentence was imposed yesterday on a man who had a slash-hook in a car outside a school.

He claimed he only had the slash-hook to give to his brother for tending to three horses. He said the horses sometimes escaped from the field they were in and the slash-hook was used to cut through ditches to get them back and stop them harming themselves.

That was the explanation given by 30-year-old John Heaphy, of 20 Willison Meadows, Tower, Blarney, at Cork District Court.