Police received a report of a “topless” man walking along the main road between Coleraine and Ballymoney and although officers then left him to a train station, an hour later he was again spotted naked to the waist at the side of another major road amid fears for his safety, a court heard.
Paul Weir (42), of Cliftonpark Avenue, Belfast, first came to police attention at Newbridge Road on July 24 this year, Coleraine Magistrates Court was told.
The defendant had been reported as a “missing person” and when spoken to initially by police he said he “just wanted to get home to Belfast”.
Police assisted him to a Train Station but a short time later they received another report of a “topless” man on the Frosses Road near Ballymoney.
Police tried to remove Weir from the road for his own safety but he began shouting and swearing and called an officer a “wh*re” and a “f*cking b*tch”.
Defence barrister Francis Rafferty said the defendant had no recollection of the incidents but wanted to make a “fulsome apology”.
The lawyer said after Weir’s first interaction with police who had “kindly” taken him to a Train Station, he was then “found wandering down the Frosses Road in a state of undress”.
Mr Rafferty said the defendant’s actions had been “inexplicable” but he was now addressing “that kind of manic behaviour” and receiving medical assistance.
Weir pleaded guilty to charges of being disorderly and resisting police and was fined £175.
