Teacher convicted of harassing Germans

A MATHS teacher was convicted yesterday of harassing his German neighbours by playing wartime classics and performing Nazi salutes.

Reinhard and Kathryn Went, both 62, said 54-year-old neighbour Geoffrey Butler made their lives a misery, likening the abuse to “being water-boarded”.

Butler was found guilty of racially aggravated harassment and sentenced to a three-year conditional discharge at the request of his neighbours, who said they did not want vengeance.

He was also given a restraining order banning him from playing loud music, using threatening, abusive or insulting behaviour towards the couple, pointing photographic equipment at them or their property, or making any suggestive comments towards the German race.

Butler, of Lower Upnor, near Rochester, Kent, loudly played wartime songs including The White Cliffs Of Dover by Vera Lynn, the Dambusters theme tune and Rule Britannia, as well as broadcasting a Winston Churchill speech, Medway Magistrates’ Court was told.