A STAG party reveller brought shame upon himself when he urinated on a memorial to thousands of North-Eastern Railway workers who gave their lives for their country.

Michael Lambert, of The Heath, Norton near Stockton, relieved himself against the imposing war memorial on Station Rise, York, despite police officers telling him to stop, magistrates were told.

The 54-year-old had attended the city’s Knavesmire racecourse on July 15 for this year’s John Smiths Cup meeting before he decided to go to the city centre.

Cathy Turnbull, prosecuting, said police officers saw him at 8.30pm standing close to the memorial to the railwaymen who fell in the First World War.

He was facing it and relieving himself onto a plaque containing names of the fallen.

She said, after police officers told him to stop “he still stood and exposed himself as they spoke to him and it became clear he was drunk.”

Lambert pleaded guilty to being drunk and disorderly.

The magistrates gave him a six-month conditional discharge and ordered him to pay £85 prosecution costs and a £20 statutory surcharge within 28 days.

Lambert, who represented himself, told the court: “I regret what I have done. I have brought shame upon myself. I had had too much to drink and I didn’t know what I had done.”

The memorial at the head of Station Road is Grade II listed and commemorates 2,236 men of the North Eastern Railway Company who died in the war.

It was designed and its construction overseen by Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens, who also designed and oversaw the Cenotaph in London. It was unveiled by Field Marshall Lord Plumer in 1924.