Steroids-crazed knifeman jailed over hostages' terror

A MAN turned aggressive after taking anabolic steroid on top of alcohol and repeatedly stabbed a teenager before holding him and another friend hostage in a flat.

Andrew Pickering's 16-year-old victim described him as

looking "psychopathic" as he kept trying to stab him again and again.

When the woman with them, Kayleigh Cammish, 19, whose flat it was, tried to intervene he repeatedly punched her and stabbed her once on the eyebrow, David Brooke prosecuting told Leeds Crown Court yesterday.

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He refused to let them seek medical help, telling them: "You are both getting kept hostage and not going nowhere until daylight."

When he saw blood splashed around the walls and on a table he ordered the teenager to wipe it up before he eventually calmed down and left.

His barrister Paul Williams told the court Pickering was not

experienced in taking steroids. He had been a given a supply and took the lot unaware it was meant to be for a month.

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"He effectively overdosed on steroids and we see the result." He said it was known that steroids could trigger aggressive behaviour known as "roid rage".

Pickering, 23, was given an indeterminate prison sentence for public protection after admitting wounding the youth with intent, unlawfully wounding Miss Cammish and two charges of false imprisonment.

Judge James Goss QC said the two young people were subjected to a terrifying and prolonged ordeal and Pickering's record appeared to indicate a pattern of escalating violence.

Ordering he serve a minimum of two years and 300 days before he can apply for parole, the judge warned he would only be released when no longer considered a danger.

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The court heard that Pickering had only recently been released from Hull Jail after a sentence for assault and battery when he rang Miss Cammish in Scarborough on September 3, last year telling her he was on the way to visit her.

He arrived at around 11pm and was met by her and others, including the 16-year-old.

At first they went to another person's house for something to drink but while there Pickering stamped on a child's laptop computer, breaking it, and then smashed up part of a vacuum cleaner. The occupier asked him to leave.

It was then he went with Miss Cammish and the teenager to her home nearby.

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Once there, the 16-year-old mentioned that his brother had also been in Hull Prison and it was that which appeared to trigger the violence,

with Pickering describing that man as a "grass".

Pickering went to the kitchen, armed himself with a knife, took off his T-shirt and shoes to avoid them getting bloodstained and attacked the youth.

At one stage he was lying bleeding on the floor, with Pickering saying "I hope you die."

Miss Cammish tried to intervene on a number of occasions but was repeatedly punched, leaving her with bruising.