A BLOOD-soaked man confronted police officers with a meat cleaver in one hand and a knife in the other, a court heard.

They arrived after Steven McGran, 38, was seen wielding the weapons on his doorstep and shouting: “Come on, who wants it?”

They tried to subdue him with tear gas as he came towards them aggressively, but he quickly shook off its affects before retreating back into a house in Whitmore Way., Basildon.

Police were called after neighbours reported he had had a blazing row with his partner shortly after midnight on New Year’s Day.

She had fled the house with her eight-year-old daughter and was taking refuge in a neighbour’s house.

A police negotiator was brought in to talk to him on his mobile phone.

McGran said he wanted to kill himself, and threatened to stab anyone who entered the building.

After two hours police decided to enter the building. They found McGran in a bedroom and, when he refused to give himself up, used a Taser stun gun to subdue him before wrestling him to the ground.

His knife was found nearby on a window sill, and one police officer noted seeing what appeared to be part of his intestine protruding through a self-inflected wound in his stomach.

He was taken to hospital for treatment and later said he could not remember much because he had been drinking alcohol while taking medication for depression.

McGran, of Brempsons, Basildon, had already been jailed for two years for leaving a man with brain damage after punching him in the street on Christmas Eve 2005.

He admitted a charge of affray, and two counts of possession of an offensive weapon, for the offence in January, at a hearing last month.

Recorder Rex Bryan, sitting at Basildon Crown Court on Tuesday, said it was clear McGran needed professional help.

The judge handed down a six-month prison sentence, suspended for 18 months, and said he will be supervised by the probation service to make sure he gets help for his psychological, drug and alcohol problems.