A Portsmouth man was fined for acting disrespectfully in a cemetery.
word of advice: don’t hit the cemetery after a few rounds. Anthony Stallard, 24, was fined by police for acting disrespectfully in the Kingston Cemetery in Portsmouth, United Kingdom. According to The Scotsman, Stallard was seen kicking a football around with a friend on the cemetery grounds. It was obvious the two had been drinking.
Stallard was reported to police, who charged him with “using threatening or abusive words, or behaviour likely to cause distress.”
Prosecutor Tim Concannon told the court: “While the football was going on they were shouting and this defendant was effectively singing loudly and being disrespectful in among the graves. He was throwing himself backwards, waving his arms about and going ‘wooooooo’. I’m assuming he was pretending to be a ghost.”
The Scotsman reports:
Stallard had accepted at an earlier hearing that his behaviour could have been seen to cause distress to grieving relatives, and had pleaded guilty. Denise Saunders, defending, said: “He has accepted that his behaviour, if it had been outside of a cemetery would not have been inappropriate, but inside a cemetery while people are grieving for their loved ones it might be.
“He is apologetic as demonstrated by his early guilty plea.”
This wasn’t Stallard’s first trouble with the law. He had apparently committed the offence while on a 12-month conditional discharge he received for harassment in January. He was also found to be breaching a suspended sentence for an assault he committed in August of 2013.
His defense argued that Stallard had, thus far, been compliant with the supervision sentence, adding that he was undergoing testing for autism, which she says could mean he didn’t fully comprehend the consequences of his actions.
In total, Stallard was fined £35 and ordered to pay a £20 victim surcharge and £20 court costs. Three additional months were also added to his suspended sentence.
He faces a 12-week prison sentence if he commits a further offence while on his suspended sentence.
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