A DRUNKEN Chatteris man left a community police officer terrified when he told her: “I’m an ex-para and I kill policewomen”.

Fenland magistrates heard that Michael Brown, 50, issued the chilling threat as he escorted his wife home from the Chatteris Christmas Lights switch-on on December 4.

“The defendant puffed out his chest, held his fists clenched and said: ‘I’m an ex-para and I kill policewomen,’” Andrea Fawcett, prosecuting, told the court.

The PCSO had been called to Park Street after reports of an assault, but arrived to find Brown and his partner coming out of a kebab shop. When asked whether everything was all right, Brown replied: “Why what’s it to you?”

Brown continued to approach the officer as she backed away, said Mrs Fawcett. “She’s not normally intimidated but he was clearly very angry and she was very frightened,” she said.

The court heard that Brown, a former British soldier, had drunk three bottles of high strength cider and around seven pints of lager before the incident. He had been trying to get his wife, who was also drunk, safely home.

Brown, of Tribune Close, Chatteris, admitted one charge of using threatening behaviour.

Representing himself, Brown told the court that he was disgusted with his behaviour but denied making the violent reference to being an “ex-para”. He also said he had begun treatment to help him stop drinking.

“I’m trying, as a 50-year-old man, to put my life back on track,” he said. “I have two lovely step-daughters to look after.”

Fining him a total of �430, presiding magistrate Mr Alan Jones said: “You recognise the fact that drinking is not the best thing to be doing - at least not to excess.

“Nobody goes to work to be threatened and that certainly includes police officers.”