French student who took knife to nightclub walks free as 'he was scared to live in Britain after Brexit vote'

 A French student who took a knife to a nightclub has walked free from court after magistrates accepted he was scared to live in Britain post Brexit.

Phillippe Roubert, 20, claimed he needed the knife to protect himself from Britain's "violent" streets over fears "foreigners" were subjected to attacks.

Magistrates, sitting at Exeter Magistrates Court, took a lenient course of action after accepting his fears in the aftermath of the Brexit votewere understandable.

Roubert, Exeter, had attempted to take a butterfly blade into the Unit 1 club in the city on December 11 but was stopped by door staff.

He told police he was scared by stories of how dangerous the streets of Britain could be and how Brexit had fostered a climate of xenophobia.

His solicitor Deborah Minett asked the magistrates to take "an exceptionally lenient" view of his actions because of his fears.

Magistrates agreed and gave him a conditional discharge.

They were told Roubert, who was born in France but had also lived in Germany and Slovakia, had secured a place at Exeter University to complete his studies.

He had been a student in Exeter for 18 months and did not carry the knife on campus.

But when he went out the stories of violent Brexit Britain concerned him and he felt he needed protection.

"He used to hear stories about how dangerous the streets of Britain were and animosity to people from foreign countries. This is in the background of the Brexit vote when he first started his degree and disproportionate reporting in the press," Ms Minett said.  

"This worried him. He didn't realise we had an excellent police force and stringent laws.

"There is no way that knife would have been brandished. The knife offered him some reassurance on the back of some press reporting and views he held wrongly."

Roubert, who has no previous convictions, pleaded guilty to having a knife in a public place.

The magistrates said they would depart from the sentencing guidelines because they were satisfied with his reasons for carrying the knife, because of the particular context of the offence and the steps the defendant had taken to address his underlying fears.