Catholic teenager 'hung from cross in mock Crucifixion'

'I felt ashamed that everyone else saw what was happening to me and it wasn't happening to anyone else'

Christopher Jackson, Andrew Addison, Jospeh Rose and Alex Puchir stand accused of of religiously aggravated assault (PA)

A Catholic teenager was hung from a crucifix by work colleagues in a mock crucifixion, a court has heard.

The teenager, who suffered the alleged abuse during his apprenticeship with a shopfitting company in Selby, North Yorkshire, also said he was bullied in numerous other incidents.

His former co-workers, Andrew Addison, 30, Joseph Rose, 21, Christopher Jackson, 22 and Alex Puchir, 37, are on trial at York Crown Court accused of religiously aggravated assault.

The teenager, whose identity must be kept anonymous for legal reasons, told the court that he was working on a bank refit in Hull, East Yorkshire, in January 2015, when company manager Mr Addison and Mr Jackson grabbed his arms and legs.

Mr Puchir was told to make a cross, he said, which he fashioned from two pieces of timber.

"I was then lifted up and put on to the cross and secured on to it," the teenager said, adding: "I was then put up on to the wall."

The alleged victim, who was 17 and 18 at the time of his complaints, told the jury he was suspended about three feet above the floor and said a number of people working on the site had filmed the incident.

He said: "At the time, I didn't really know what to feel. I just felt, like, ashamed that everyone else saw what was happening to me and it wasn't happening to anyone else. I just felt really embarrassed.

"Afterwards, I started thinking maybe they were just trying to take the mickey out of my religion. I didn't really understand why there was a cross made."

References to his religion featured in other episodes of abuse, the teenager said. He described an earlier incident when the company was working on a site in Essex and Mr Rose used a marker pen to cover him "from head to toe" in crosses, penises and squiggles while he was asleep in a hotel room.

He was left with sore, red skin after scrubbing the marks off, he told the jury.

The court also heard that Mr Rose, on another occasion, sprayed deodorant towards the teenager's head and lit it while Mr Addison recorded the incident on his mobile phone.

Mr Addison is also accused of tying the teenager to a chair with duct tape and cable ties and leaving him locked, blindfolded in a room by himself and giving him a ‘wedgie’ by pulling his underpants up so forcibly he was lifted off his feet and suffered cuts and bruises to his buttocks.

The alleged victim told the court that he did not make a complaint at the time of the incidents because he was scared of his colleagues, did not want to get sacked and did not want anyone to know what was happening to him.

Workplace banter was to blame for the incidents, the men said in their defence.

Mr Addison, 30, of Selby, and Mr Rose, 21, of Bubwith, East Yorkshire, both deny putting a person in fear of violence by harassment and religiously aggravated assault by beating.

Mr Addison also denies a charge of assault by beating. Mr Jackson, 22, of Barlby, North Yorkshire, and Mr Puchir, 37, of Edinburgh, both deny religiously aggravated assault by beating.

The trial continues.