STAFF at a Carlisle court were left open-mouthed when a defendant appeared before them via a video link – lying on his bed and bare-chested.

Brent Grady, 24, who had been given permission to link into to the court remotely, had applied to the city’s Rickergate Magistrates’ Court to change his address while serving a community order.

But Grady appeared not to have understood that he would be immediately visible on the courtoom's wall-mounted TV screens after he activated the video link to his hearing on his mobile device. Reminded by the court clerk of the need to dress appropriately, the defendant immediately apologised.

He disappeared briefly before returning to the hearing a short time later appropriately dressed. Magistrates, who were not yet in the courtroom when he made his first appearance, accepted he had been asked to leave his former Low Meadow address in Carlisle and is now living at Cumberland Street, Carlisle.

The defendant was given a community order earlier this month which replaced an earlier one, imposed after the defendant stole toys from Sainsburys in December, 2019. At that time, he was given a 12-week curfew.