A 48-year-old Yatton man has been charged with racially aggravated assault following an incident on Monday morning.

Richard Penny, of Mendip Road, has also been charged with possessing a knife, threatening a person with a knife and using threatening/ abusive words likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress.

The charges relate to an incident in a café at approximately 8.50am in which a woman in her 40s was assaulted and another woman, an off-duty detention officer, was threatened. Attending police officers were then threatened with a knife.

Penny has also been charged with another count of using threatening/ abusive words likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress. This charge relates to an incident on High Street, Yatton at about 12pm on Friday, 4 September in which two women were verbally abused.

Penny appeared via video link at North Somerset Magistrates’ Court yesterday where he was remanded in custody pending a hearing at Bristol Crown Court at a date yet to be set.