Repaying a drug debt spiralled into violence for Jack Nottle when he found himself standing in the bedroom of someone he’d known since school, brandishing a ‘Rambo type’ knife.

Now the 20-year-old is behind bars, after pleading guilty to aggravated burglary.

Nottle, of Bodmin, was one of three masked men who had entered a house in the town through an unlocked back door, at around 10pm on August 24 last year.

From there they had gone upstairs to the bedroom of the 19-year-son of the woman living there. She had followed them upstairs to see him trying to fight the men off.

Prosecutor Nigel Wraith told Truro Crown Court on Friday that the woman tried to grab one of the men off her son and they ended up on the landing, where somehow her thumb was cut by a knife. She later needed surgery due to the laceration being so deep.

He said the other men were saying: “We don’t want to hurt you, we just want your money.”

She told them there was money downstairs and went down to the kitchen, to check on her young daughter who had been hiding.

The three men ran out the back door and, looking in the drawer, the woman found £500 was missing.

“She described the men as wearing balaclavas or ski type masks,” said Mr Wraith.

Her son told police he had been in his bedroom when two men barged their way in, with a third on the landing. The prosecution say the tallest man was Nottle.

“The defendant grabbed [the son], holding a knife with a pointed end. [The son] had grabbed out to reach the knife, to stop him being stabbed,” said Mr Wraith, who added £200 to £300 was then taken from the teenager’s wallet.

The son had then followed the men onto the landing, where the tallest man, said to be Nottle, pushed the victim against a wall, shouting “I don’t want to stab you. Don’t let me stab you.”

“He recognised the voice to be Jack Nottle, who he had known since year eight at school,” said Mr Wraith.

He said the knife, described as a “large Rambo type knife”, was discovered by police on top of a fuse box at Nottle’s home.

Falmouth Packet: Jack Nottle is now in a Young Offender InstitutionJack Nottle is now in a Young Offender Institution (Image: Devon and Cornwall Police)

Ed Bailey, representing Nottle, said seven good character references had been received for the defendant.

He told the court: “Mr Nottle was extremely anxious that the first thing I mention is this; he wishes me to apologise unreservedly on his behalf for the terror that he put [the victims] through that night.

“He feels a deep sense of shame. His remorse is genuine.”

Mr Bailey said to understand how he became involved that night, it was necessary go back to Nottle’s “troubled teenage years.”

He explained Nottle had suffered from depression, was bullied at school and had responded to that by joining the gang of bullies.

“That was probably the worst decision he’s made,” said Mr Bailey, who added that Nottle went on to be diagnosed with ADHD.

He stopped taking his medication for this and substituted it with ketamine, and by the time of this offence he was taking ketamine on a daily basis, in addition to injecting himself with steroids.

“That explains his state of mind when he was approached by one of this group of individuals, and stupidly agreed to take part,” said Mr Bailey.

However, over the last six months Nottle had become clean and had undergone three operations for abscesses, which were the result of getting streptococcus from injecting the steroids.

Judge Simon Carr told Nottle: “You have pleaded guilty to two exceptionally serious offences.

“Drug debts have a habit of being enforced by those that supply them. Those that supplied you rang up and said you needed to become involved in the offences. You chose to do that.

“You brought a Rambo knife from your own property and a balaclava.”

He sentenced Nottle to four and a half years at a Young Offender Institution, with half of that time to be served before he can be released on licence.