A MAN who disrupted a Remembrance Sunday event and a Durham Cathedral service, stole from a church’s collection for the homeless and harassed library staff has been banned from a city centre for three years.

Thomas Todd had become a well-known, if unwelcome, face around Durham, with his antics leading to him being reported to police 45 times, and arrested on 18 occasions, in just four months – a period that included a spell spent in prison over Christmas.

Now magistrates, acting at the request of Durham Police, have slapped Todd, known as Tommy, with a Criminal Behaviour Order (CBO), banning him from entering the city centre for three years.

PC Gary Thompson said on one occasion he had arrested Todd, of no fixed abode, during a Remembrance Sunday event at Durham Cathedral, after the 56-year-old had abused people queueing to enter the service.

Todd has also a disrupted Cathedral service by shouting and swearing loudly; stolen from a collection for the homeless at Christchurch, on Claypath; harassed staff at Durham County Council’s Clayport Library; busked without permission; and been caught drunk and disorderly.

A Durham Police spokesman said: “Todd has been a massive drain on police resources when he is not in custody, a colossal impact on Durham Constabulary as service provider. But he made huge negative impact on the visitors, workers and community as a whole in Durham City with his drunken demeanour.”

PC Thompson added: “The number of man hours we’ve spent dealing with him, it was becoming a daily occurrence.

“We’ve got to think of the community as a whole. We can’t spend all our manpower on one man.”

Todd appeared before magistrates in Peterlee on Thursday, January 21. He was already serving a 24-week prison sentence imposed a week earlier for harassment and public order offences.

He was given a CBO banning him from the area of Durham covered by the Designated Public Place Order (DPPO), which includes the Peninsula, Claypath, Elvet and North Road, as far out as Maiden Castle and County Hall.

Todd is also banned from going within 100 metres of Clayport Library.