A drunken man waved a carving knife and shouted death threats at his neighbour after loud music playing next door caused him to "snap".

Darren Weedal broke his neighbour's back gate and then went round to the front of the house in Kirkdale Road, South Wigston, yelling: "I'm going to kill you.

"I'm going to stab you."

Leicester Crown Court heard the 30-year-old flew into a rage after he heard his neighbour was playing loud music shortly after midnight on Sunday, January 8.

He challenged the victim, who was watching through his living room window, to go outside.

In court yesterday, Weedal was given a 51-week jail sentence, suspended for two years, with supervision, after pleading guilty to making a threat to kill and possessing a bladed article.

Judge Lynn Tayton said: "You'd been drinking heavily and went outside making threats to stab you neighbour whilst wielding a carving knife.

"Going outside with a knife is so dangerous.

"If someone had confronted you in the emotional state you were in, one doesn't know what would have happened.

Weedal, a father of two, was also ordered to do 250 hours of unpaid work and placed on a three-month 7pm to 7am electronically-monitored curfew.

Judge Tayton said she had read letters from Weedal's partner and mother and accepted the offence "was out of character".

"I think you're genuinely remorseful and I can protect your neighbour better by having something hanging over your head, by way of a suspended prison sentence," the judge added.

During yesterday's hearing, the court heard witnesses saw Weedal waving the knife outside.

John Hallissey, prosecuting, said: "Other residents also saw the defendant standing outside the complainant's front door as he waved the knife about, threatening to use it.

"One witness saw him shouting through the letterbox and lunging with the knife towards the front door.

"The neighbour called the police, who attended and arrested the defendant a short time later."

Philip Gibbs, mitigating, said: "He knows drink is no excuse and he takes full responsibility.

"He understands how alarming it was for others and how he's let his family down.

"He's made no attempt to blame his neighbour, other than saying it was triggered by loud music.

"Something connected with the drink and irritation of the loud music caused him to snap.

"He's an ordinary family man and genuinely remorseful."

Weedal has been living away from his family and home since the incident, Mr Gibbs told the court. It was a condition of his bail that Weedal stay at his mother's house in Mablethorpe.