Jeremy Kyle show lie detector test applicant jailed

A man who wanted out of prison to take a lie detector test on the Jeremy Kyle TV show has been jailed for shouting sectarian slogans.

Frederick Boyd, 22, with a former address at Mark Street, Newtownards, County Down, was sentenced to three months for disorderly behaviour.

Boyd shouted obscenities and sectarian slogans at passers-by from a pillar at the front of Belfast City Hall while draped in union flags.

He also made obscene gestures.

'Bizarre'

Boyd claimed loyalist paramilitaries had put a gun to his head and ordered him to do it.

A judge at Belfast Magistrates' Court told him: "Ordinary decent members of the public and those who choose to visit this city should be able to go about their business in a peaceful manner without being subjected to the type of sectarian taunts you issued on that day."

At a previous hearing his lawyer detailed alleged attacks on him while in custody over an unconnected incident.

The court was told then how he was desperate to get out of prison so he could clear his name on those allegations by taking a lie detector test on Jeremy Kyle's daytime television chat show on ITV.

During the sentencing hearing, a defence lawyer described the City Hall incident as "completely bizarre".

He said: "Photographs were in the newspapers and members of the public appeared to be finding it rather comic, but it isn't.

"It caused serious disorder and could have caused even worse disorder."

He said his client was an intelligent man when sober but remains troubled by a number of undisclosed issues.

Boyd was granted bail pending appeal against the conviction.