A man landed in court after he dropped a knife on the pavement - right outside Colchester police station.

Robert Bell was spotted picking up the blade by an officer watching from an upstairs window, magistrates were told.

The 46-year-old will be sentenced next month, after he admitted having carried the weapon.

Colchester Magistrates' Court heard Bell was with his girlfriend, wheeling his bike down Butt Road, when the knife fell out of his trousers on June 23 this year.

The watching police officer sent a colleague down to arrest him and he offered no resistance.

Anna Perera, mitigating, said the keen cyclist, of Hunting Gate, Colchester, had found the knife in the street and decided to take it home.

"There is no suggestion that he was brandishing the knife or anything like that," she said.

The court heard Bell, who admitted the offence at an earlier hearing, had failed to keep an appointment with the probation service.

As a result, reports needed to help magistrates sentence him had not been prepared.

The Bench agreed to allow him a second chance to attend his interview, and adjourned sentencing until September 11.