An inmate at a Suffolk prison accused of threatening to cut the prison governor’s head off has been cleared by a jury.

Before Ipswich Crown Court was 41-year-old Ade Christie of no fixed address.

He denied making a threat to kill a governor at Highpoint prison in July last year and a jury took less than an hour on Tuesday (July 19) to find him not guilty of the charge.

Following his acquittal the prosecution offered no evidence on a further charge of assault on an emergency worker and a not guilty verdict was entered on the court record.

Giving evidence during his trial Christie accepted that he had jumped over railings on the landing near his cell at Highpoint prison in a bid to get transferred to another prison.

He said there was a drop of about 20 feet from the railings to the ground and he knew that the prison would be forced to call out the National Tactical Response Team to deal with the situation.

Christie said that once the prison had called out the National Tactical Response Team he knew that prison protocol would result in him getting his wish to be moved to another prison.

Christie denied threatening to “cut staff” and to cut off the head of the prison governor who tried to reason with him during the stand-off which lasted for six hours before he surrendered.

The prosecution alleged that Christie told the governor he wanted a transfer from HMP Highpoint and when he was told he wasn’t going about it in the right way Christie had threatened to “start to cut staff up”.

He had then allegedly threatened to cut off the governor’s head and added: “You have no idea who I am. This is what I do.”

Giving evidence at Ipswich Crown Court the prison governor said Christie had looked straight into his eyes when he made the threat to cut off his head.

“I felt very nervous and I thought he meant it,” said the governor.

The court heard that there had been a 15 to 20-foot drop from the railings and a specialist team had been called to the prison to deal with the situation which ended several hours later with Christie returning to the right side of the railings.