A MENTALLY-ill biochemist who tried to hold up a Burnley bank with a knife and a note has failed in an appeal against a jail term.

Brent Makinson, 52, urged a teller to call police and handed her a note which read: “Tell them you have a very disturbed man with a knife asking for £100,000 – do it now, because I don't know what I'm going to do and will probably kill someone in the bank.”

The alarm was raised and security screens were activated. Makinson stood there impassively until police arrived.

He told officers he was mentally ill and the incident was a ‘cry for help’.

He apologised and said he had no intention of harming anyone.

Makinson, of Coniston Street, Burnley, was jailed for 12 months at the town’s crown court after admitting possession of an offensive weapon at the Abbey branch in St James Street on June 17 last year.

He is now in a mental hospital but told the Court of Appeal his sentence was unfair.

Law lords feared he could be discharged from his secure unit and back into prison so rejected his appeal.

Judge Michael Baker QC said: “We do not feel that we can interfere with the sentence that has been passed.

“The case clearly crossed the custodial threshold. Alternative disposals are not, in our judgment, available.”