A MAN who branded police officers "idiots" and used offensive language when he went to a police station to report an assault has been found guilty of a public order offence.

Mark Baxtrem became agitated and aggressive when he felt the officers were not taking his claims seriously and had to be forcibly removed from Kirkleatham Police Station in Redcar because he refused to calm down and stop being abusive.

The 48-year-old, who represented himself at Teesside Magistrates’ Court, was arrested for using threatening, abusive or insulting words that were likely to cause alarm and distress when he continued to shout at officers on November 12 last year.

Bus driver Geoffrey Cannell was sat in the police station waiting area when the incident started and told the court what he had heard.

He said: “He more or less said to the receptionist ‘can I see the p***k of a sergeant who wants to arrest me?’ In my opinion it wasn’t said nicely, it was said abusively and loudly.”

Baxtrem, a self employed marine engineer, disputed that he was angry when he cross examined Mr Cannell.

Sergeant Andrew Dark said: “It was quite apparent to me that he wanted to get arrested and he made it quite apparent that if he wasn’t arrested he was going to kick out a window. He seemed hell bent on being arrested that afternoon.”

Under cross examination, Baxtrem called the sergeant a liar and reminded him about the consequences of lying under oath.

District Judge Andrew Meachin was forced to regularly interrupt and Baxtrem while he was cross examining witnesses as he continued to make derogatory remarks to police officers.

When Baxtrem was giving evidence he accepted he called the officers pricks and idiots but claimed they were descriptive words and not offensive.

Under cross examination, he again accepted using the words, saying: “There are quite a lot of them who are idiots and at this time there was one prick and three idiots.”

Judge Meachin found Baxtrem guilty of the public order offence and fined him £500 while ordering him to pay £600 in costs and a £50 victim surcharge after hearing it was the second time in a short period of time he had been found guilty of the same offence.

He said: “You accept that you used language, which you called descriptive, but the witnesses deemed as abusive. You and your behaviour on that particular evening was threatening and abusive.”

Speaking outside the court Baxtrem said he intended to appeal the decision claiming it was a "kangaroo" court.