A PENSIONER defecated on a gravestone because the public toilets were shut and the medication he was taking made him prone to “combustion”, JPs heard.

Percy Edmunds, 69, apologised for going to the toilet in the graveyard of St Mary’s Church, Devizes, but said he’d picked up his poo when asked by a policeman. 

Magistrates sitting in Salisbury accepted his apology, imposed a six month conditional discharge and ordered he pay a £22 victim surcharge. 

Earlier, prosecutor Ryan Seneviratne told the court that police received a call at around 4.30pm on Wednesday, April 29, from a member of the public reporting they’d just seen a man defecate in the Devizes churchyard. 

The caller’s detailed description was passed on to a PC Clark. That description matched the clothes worn by Edmunds, who was still in the churchyard together with another man. 

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St Mary's Church, Devizes Picture: GOOGLE

Initially both men denied knowledge of the poo, but Edmunds later confessed, saying “yeah well, I did”. 

Mr Seneviratne said Edmunds was told to follow the officer and pick up the excrement. “He was given a bag and some gloves to pick it up and is described as happily doing so.” 

The prosecutor said it wasn’t known whether there was any connection between the defendant and the grave upon which he defecated or why there was no grassy area on which he could have gone to the toilet. 

Edmunds, of High Street, Rowde, pleaded guilty to outraging public decency. 
Representing himself, he said nearby public toilets had been occupied at the time – although it was suggested in court that they may have been shut by 4.30pm. Other buildings like pubs were shut as it was during the first lockdown. 

“I just felt I could do nothing and I’ve taken these tablets and they cause ‘combustion’,” he told the court. 

Asked why he’d defecated on a grave, he replied: “Not being funny, I thought it was somewhere out the way.”

Imposing a six month conditional discharge, chairman of the bench Helen Toomer said: “We understand the circumstances of how this arose and we appreciate that you were on medication, that the public toilets weren’t open to you, that this was the very early stages of lockdown and you’ve explained that you cleaned it up and apologised.”

As he left the court, Edmunds thanked the magistrates: “I appreciate your leniency with all this.”