A teenage boy has been convicted of outraging public decency after being seen penetrating a horse with his hand.
Magistrates' heard how the 17-year-old boy, who cannot be named, was spotted by a woman while she was using binoculars to check on horses in a field in Blyth, Northumberland.
She became concerned when she saw a male lifting up the tails of the horses. She went outside to stop him, but he saw her and escaped, reports ChronicleLive.
She said: "I think I shouted: 'Yeah you better get out of the field, what the hell are you doing with the horses?'"
The woman's partner said her actions drew his attention and he looked through the binoculars. He said he saw the teenager holding one of the tails of a horse with his right hand while penetrating it with his left hand.
He said: "He was stroking the horse down it's neck and down it's rear end and then he proceeded to pick the horse's tail up and basically inserted his hand into the horse.
"I thought to myself, for a minute, what have you just seen, were you sure. So I picked the binoculars back up and had another look. That's when I realised he had his whole hand inside the horse."
The man rang the police and stopped the teenager from riding away on his bike.
He said: "I went up to him, wound the window down and asked him to stop so I could speak to him. He said, 'I love horses me, I wouldn't do anything to hurt one.' I said, 'Stop we need to talk.' He didn't want to, he said, 'No.'"
The man said the teenager appeared to have a mark on his left arm and there was a smell which he had never smelt before.
The court heard how police arrived at the scene, spoke to the couple, took the teen home and explained the accusation to his parents.
Sarah O'Neill, prosecuting, told the court: "It's accepted this young man had some substance on his arm, that had a smell. It appeared to be a sticky type liquid on his arm."
A Northumbria Police officer, who attended the scene, said the teenager had something on his arm, which could have been faeces, but he wasn't willing to touch or smell it for health and safety reasons. He admitted it could have been mud.
The teenager told the court he had gone into the field to stroke the horses and that he did not lift up the horse's tail or penetrate it.
When Ms O'Neill put to him that the male witness said his hand went into the horse, he replied: "Right, that didn't happen."
He said he ran away because he knew he shouldn't have been in the field. He said the substance on his hands was mud from building jumps for his bike.
Ms O'Neill asked him: "If somebody put their hand up a horses what do you think that would look like to other people?"
The teenager replied: "Disgusting."
The teenager's dad said he had asked his son if he had committed the crime and he "categorically 100% denies it".
When asked if he believed him, he said: "I do aye. He's an honest lad."
He said that he checked his son's hands and arms.
He said: "They didn't have horse's manure or excrement on."
Glenn Reardon, defending, told Magistrates: "I'm not suggesting at all they've come here to lie or tell mistruth, I'm simply saying they've been mistaken in what they've seen."
The teen pleaded not guilty to outraging public decency but, following a trial at North Tyneside Youth Court on Monday, April 22, was convicted of the charge.
He will be sentenced next month.
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