A gardener who strolled home from his allotment was arrested by armed police after a member of the public dialled 999 over a ‘knifeman wearing khaki’.
Samuel Rowe, 35, had been walking with his trug of vegetables and gardening tools in Manchester earlier this month when he made the decision to trim his hedge.
Mr Rowe, who works as a technical manager at a theatre, whipped out his Japanese garden sickle which had been strapped to his belt.
But he was interrupted after hearing shouting behind him from two armed officers who insisted he ‘drop the knife’.
The policemen then proceeded to ask Mr Rowe if he was ‘autistic’ and whether he had ever ‘served’ in the armed forces.
‘They got into their head I was some kind of extremist going out with knives,’ the keen gardener said.
Mr Rowe explained the tools on his belt were a Niwaki Hori Hori gardening trowel in a canvas sheath, and an Ice Bear Japanese gardener’s sickle.
He recalled police had commented ‘that’s not a garden tool’ when he pulled the implement out of its sheath despite Mr Rowe insisting it was ‘the Niwaki-branded pouch that you get at garden centres’.
Mr Rowe recalled: ‘It was a good seven hours before an officer was assigned my case. They came back and said “we’ve tried contacting this solicitor three times and they’ve not answered the phone”.
‘They said “we can ring them again, start the process again with another solicitor, or you do the interview without a solicitor”.
‘By this point I was pretty traumatised, I’d spent hours in a cell with the lights going dim, going bright again over periods of time. I didn’t know exactly what time it was.
‘I’d tried getting to phone my partner to let her know where I was, with five different people, each time it was like the first time I’d asked.
‘Then this officer eventually took me out, it must have been 7.30 or 8pm at this point, to let my partner know, and all they did was ring her up and tell her where I was.
‘They said “to be honest, it’s a courtesy call, he’ll ring you when he gets out”.’
Mr Rowe was reportedly probed further on whether he was ‘planning on doing something’ with his tools and was asked to explain what an allotment was.
He added: ‘It didn’t fill me with any kind of confidence I was going to be treated fairly, because I’d been arrested doing my gardening with what they were telling me was an offensive weapon.
‘All the way through the interview I was saying “this is what I had on me, if you look this up on the internet all these gardening sites will come up with gardening tools”.
‘One of the armed officers took one of them out of the pouch which was branded with the gardening brand – the kind of thing you see hanging off the belt of people on Gardener’s World.
‘It’s not a weird thing to have on me, but they just weren’t listening.
‘I was explaining I had good reason to take them to and from my allotment, I said my allotment isn’t secure – people can break in and steal stuff, as they often do.’
After several hours in custody the deflated gardener explained he had accepted a caution so would be released.
Samuel’s partner had given him the £32 Niwaki Hori Hori weeding trowel, which was in a sheath on his belt at the time of the arrest, as a birthday present.
The £10 Ice Bear gardener’s sickle was purchased from an online garden centre, while the fruit harvesting tool – which he’s still not been given back – was passed down to him from his late grandmother.
Samuel said: ‘It makes me angry, because they shouldn’t have it. I’m still upset about her dying, and they just took it off me.’
Samuel has been growing fruit and veg – including rhubarb, broad beans, artichokes, and tomatoes, at his allotment since 2022.
He was given a patch after a two-year period on his local council’s waiting list.
Now, he is worried that the police caution he accepted will appear on background checks if he applies for future job interviews.
Samuel now wants to see the caution removed.
He added: ‘I’ve done absolutely nothing wrong in the past, because I didn’t want to have any contact with the police.
‘I got a phone call [afterwards] from Greater Manchester’s mental health team who were then asking for questions about my lifestyle, religion, and that kind of thing.
‘It’s not a large dagger – it’s a tool for digging with, and I kept telling them that.
‘It’s not a peeling knife either, because why would I have a potato peeler in my pocket? It doesn’t make sense.’
Greater Manchester Police said firearms officers were sent as they were the closest to the scene after they were alerted by a member of the public.
The force denies Samuel was ever refused legal advice, saying it tried multiple times to contact a solicitor and he chose to decline legal advice in the end.
A Greater Manchester Police spokesperson said: ‘At around 12.20pm on 3 July, we acted on a call from a member of the public that a man was walking in public wearing khaki clothing and in possession of a knife.
‘Nearby officers were flagged down by the caller, who directed them towards a male.
‘He was subsequently stopped and a small sickle, a large dagger which was in a sheath on a belt, and a peeling knife, were seized.
‘He was arrested on suspicion of possession of an offensive weapon and taken into custody.
‘He admitted the offence and was given a conditional caution, which entailed advice and guidance around the legislation of knives and bladed weapons in a public place.’
Mr Rowe is now seeking legal representation to try to challenge his arrest and his caution as he is concerned the incident will affect his future employment given part of his job involves working with vulnerable adults.
The gardener added he should not have been arrested by armed officers, did not deserve it, that his caution should be removed and his gardening tools ought to be returned.
The 35-year-old concluded he ‘might even like an apology’ but estimated ‘the chances of that are next to nothing.’
