Anonymous
ID: h/OsRLFI
8/7/2025, 11:10:52 AM No.512442678
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/uk-news/gardener-arrested-armed-police-carrying-32214839
A gardener was arrested by armed police for "carrying a knife" while walking home with his gardening tools from the allotment.
Samuel Rowe, 35, from Chorlton, was detained, kept in a cell and cautioned by cops after they accused him of carrying a 'large dagger' last month.
He had just tended to his allotment vegetable patch and was trimming the hedges outside his home with a sickle when armed police swooped on July 3. Samuel had his Japanese gardening trowel, a sickle and a fruit harvesting tool confiscated from him before being taken to a police station.
He was then held in cell for more than seven hours before he was released by police when he accepted a caution for possession of an offensive weapon. The theatre manager said he was left terrified when officers armed with guns turned up outside his home and now wants the caution overturned.
The keen gardener, of Manchester, said: "I was coming back from my allotment in the morning. I'd just got home and started trimming the hedge at the top of my house, and then I heard shouting and it was armed police – two armed police telling me to 'drop the knife.'
"At the time I had my Japanese gardening sickle in my hand that I was using, so I dropped that along with the privet I'd been cutting. Then they turned me around, pushed me up against the house, handcuffed me behind my back, took everything out my belt.
"Then they asked me why I was there and where I'd been. Eventually they put me in the back of their van and took me to Cheadle Hulme police station, which is miles from my house.
"They got into their head I was some kind of extremist going out with knives."
Samuel says he was then kept in cells and asked if he wanted a solicitor, but he never got to see one. He said: "It was a good seven hours before an officer was assigned my case.
A gardener was arrested by armed police for "carrying a knife" while walking home with his gardening tools from the allotment.
Samuel Rowe, 35, from Chorlton, was detained, kept in a cell and cautioned by cops after they accused him of carrying a 'large dagger' last month.
He had just tended to his allotment vegetable patch and was trimming the hedges outside his home with a sickle when armed police swooped on July 3. Samuel had his Japanese gardening trowel, a sickle and a fruit harvesting tool confiscated from him before being taken to a police station.
He was then held in cell for more than seven hours before he was released by police when he accepted a caution for possession of an offensive weapon. The theatre manager said he was left terrified when officers armed with guns turned up outside his home and now wants the caution overturned.
The keen gardener, of Manchester, said: "I was coming back from my allotment in the morning. I'd just got home and started trimming the hedge at the top of my house, and then I heard shouting and it was armed police – two armed police telling me to 'drop the knife.'
"At the time I had my Japanese gardening sickle in my hand that I was using, so I dropped that along with the privet I'd been cutting. Then they turned me around, pushed me up against the house, handcuffed me behind my back, took everything out my belt.
"Then they asked me why I was there and where I'd been. Eventually they put me in the back of their van and took me to Cheadle Hulme police station, which is miles from my house.
"They got into their head I was some kind of extremist going out with knives."
Samuel says he was then kept in cells and asked if he wanted a solicitor, but he never got to see one. He said: "It was a good seven hours before an officer was assigned my case.
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