Banbury man who terrified shoppers by walking into barbers with machete has been spared jail

A Banbury man who terrified people by walking into a town centre barbers with a machete has been spared jail.

A video of the incident, showing Adil Taseem walking down the street with the weapon and saying ‘continue recording, mate’, went viral on social media.

At Oxford Crown Court yesterday (Thursday), Taseem was given an 18-month community order, having already spent two months in prison while on remand.

As part of the order, the 22-year-old must wear a GPS monitoring tag around his ankle for six months, complete 150 hours of unpaid work and do up to 46 sessions with the probation service.

Taseem, of Manor Road, Banbury, pleaded guilty to possession of a bladed article and threatening behaviour.

Taseem was filmed emerging from Trinder’s Barbershop in Church Lane on Saturday, May 27, with a machete in his hand. The incident happened in broad daylight with many shoppers watching on in horror.

He told the person behind the camera to ‘continue recording, mate’ before stuffing the red-handled weapon down the front of his trousers.

The incident went viral on social media and the video was widely shared.

Taseem said that he had been threatened in an earlier incident and he took the knife to the barbers as he believed those who had been chasing him were in the premises.

Police believed the defendant was ‘quite high up’ in a County Lines-type drugs operation - a claimed ‘very much denied’ by Taseem.