Wham! single annoyed neighbours

Wham! scored several hits in the 80s

A Wham! fan who infuriated neighbours by blasting out their hit Last Christmas all night has been prosecuted by council officials.

Brian Turner, of Doncaster Road, Newcastle, repeatedly played the festive favourite at full volume one night in May.

Now he has become the first noise nuisance to be prosecuted by Newcastle City Council's Night Watch team.

Magistrates fined Turner £200 and ordered him to pay £215 costs.

Gosforth magistrates heard how Turner visited friends in nearby Walker on 15 May and played the song relentlessly from 0100 BST until 0400 BST.

Repeated warnings

Finally a neighbour snapped and called in the noise squad, who eventually gave residents peace by seizing the stereo.

A city council spokesman said: "The music was so loud from the flat that officers could clearly identify the track being played as Last Christmas by Wham!"

Anita Lower, city council executive member for transformation, modernisation and regulation, said: "In most instances a visit from the Night Watch team is all that is required to deal with problems of night time noise.

"However, in a very few cases such as this, people continue to be noisy even after they have been warned and leave us with little option but to take action against them."

A study by the National Society for Clean Air and Environmental Protection (NSCA) revealed noisy neighbours forced around half a million people to move home between 2005 and 2006.