Sexual insults to a gay couple proved costly for a teenager at York Magistrates Court when he was fined £100, with £50 costs.

Steven Ovenden, prosecuting, said the two women had already had to put up with taunts about their sexual orientation before Richard John Arrand knocked on their door late on Good Friday.

He asked if "Chris" lived there, and when the couple told him no, and asked him politely to leave, he made insults about their sexual orientation, and threatened to come back and put their windows through.

"This is something the police will not tolerate," Mr Ovenden said, referring to the episode.

In a separate incident, just before he knocked on the couple's door, Arrand had urinated into the hedge of a house nearby.

Arrand, 18, of Roche Avenue, off Huntington Road, York, pleaded guilty to a public order offence.

Jeremy Scott, for Arrand, said it was a case of "drink in, wits out". Arrand had been looking for a friend and, according to him, the conversation at the door had been an argument, with both sides exchanging cross words.

He could not remember if he had made sexual jibes because he had been so drunk. "He is apologetic," said Mr Scott. "He wasn't any part of the previous problems which these two ladies had had."

Updated: 09:47 Saturday, April 09, 2005