A builder who erected model penises outside a man's house has been fined for homophobic abuse.

Michael Parkes pleaded guilty to using threatening words and behaviour at Bristol Magistrates' Court yesterday.

The court heard how the 34-year-old, from Bristol in the UK, who was absent from the hearing, was working on a house in Bourneville Road with another builder on 12 March, when neighbor Richard Ives asked if he could take his washing inside before they started work.