NAKED NUISANCE NEIGHBOUR MICHAEL PROUSE OF NORTON JAILED
A nuisance neighbour has been jailed for going out into his home street completely naked and shouting and swearing.Michael Ian Prouse, 61, also ripped a doorbell camera off his neighbour’s door and stole it in the middle of the night, said Shabina Taj, prosecuting.
It was the latest in months of problems he had caused his neighbour who had reported him to her housing association.
“I felt petrified at that time to have a grown man naked and threatening.
It was just horrifying,” the neighbour told police.
Prouse, of Winston Court, Norton, pleaded guilty to outraging public decency, theft of a doorbell camera and criminal damage to a police cell.
“You will be sent to prison today,” York magistrates told him as they jailed him for 10 weeks and ordered him to pay £99.99 compensation to the neighbour, £35.91 compensation to police, £85 prosecution costs and a £154 statutory surcharge.
Charlotte Haigh for Prouse said: “He is very sorry for this offending and willing to provide compensation.” Since being remanded in custody, he had realised that it could be appropriate for him to move and was willing to work with the probation service on how to think before acting.
Ms Taj said on August 15, the neighbour was at home when she heard Prouse shouting and swearing and behaving in an unruly manner outside.
He was in the street completely naked.
Ms Haigh said he had not planned the incident.
“He felt he was acting in an emergency situation.
He heard a noise outside,” she said.
He was not wearing clothes and felt he had to go outside.
He had not done so with any sexual intent.
Ms Taj said at 3.30am on September 12, the neighbour got a phone alert about her doorbell camera.
Checking, she saw Prouse pulling the £99.99 camera from the door, damaging the door frame and walking off with it.
Ms Haigh said the theft was a “spontaneous act” and said Prouse believed he was being watched by the camera.
Ms Taj said the criminal damage was caused when Prouse was arrested on July 24 and urinated on his cell floor in Scarborough Police Station.
The cell had to be deep cleaned.
Ms Haigh said Prouse had had an unstable lifestyle and nowhere to live until he moved into the Norton area.
He had been at the address there for two years.
