TWO teenage boys admitted vandalising a church with offensive graffiti when they appeared at youth court yesterday.
Magistrates heard that the pair daubed graffiti across a bench and a wall at St Mary's RC Church, in Central Avenue, Newton Aycliffe.
They admitted using a can of red spray paint they found near the church grounds, on Saturday June 30, to write sexually explicit words and other phrases on the building.
The boys, aged 15 and 16 and both from Newton Aycliffe, pleaded guilty to criminal damage at South Durham Youth Court, in Newton Aycliffe, yesterday. They cannot be named for legal reasons.
Robert Willoughby, mitigating, said: "Both apologise for their conduct on the day in question which they accept was totally out of order and shouldn't have happened."
The 15-year-old was made the subject of a three-month referral order.
The 16-year-old was given a 12- hour reparation order to run alongside an existing action plan order.
They were each ordered to pay £145 compensation and £43 legal costs.
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