Court warns Italian TV prankster

Safe sex through the use of condoms is part of Gabriele Paolini's message

Prolific Italian TV prankster and condom advocate Gabriele Paolini faces a prison sentence unless he behaves.

Mr Paolini has made a career of popping up uninvited behind unwitting on-air TV reporters promoting condom use.

Guinness World Records says Mr Paolini is the world's most successful TV hijacker, interrupting 20,000 link-ups.

But now Italy's Supreme Court has upheld a three-month suspended sentence on him for interrupting a report on the state broadcaster RAI in June 2001.

The court has also ruled that anyone who deliberately gets onto TV while standing in a public place can commit an offence even if they are silent and immobile.

'Prophylactic prophet'

While Mr Paolini has made a name for himself by bobbing about and generally disrupting reporters' efforts to be serious, he is more than just an attention-seeker, says the BBC's Mark Duff in Milan.

He calls himself the prophylactic prophet - not just because his antics often involve condoms, but because he sees his capers as a way of drawing attention to the plight of Aids sufferers.

It was the death of a friend from the disease which launched him on his career of disruption.

Even before the court's ruling, Mr Paolini had not always had things his own way, our correspondent says: reporters have been known to lash out at him in frustration, sometimes on camera.