Cock-a-doodle-don't!

Residents have sleep shattered by bird's noisy 3am squawking

- Mark Reynolds

A PENSIONER has been fined after his noisy pet cockerel tortured neighbours by waking them up as early as 3am.

Harold Brown's nuisance bird was recorded crowing once a minute for an hour and a half by environmental health officials after residents complained of the continual "cocka-doodle-do" sound coming from his garden.

A court heard he had replaced one noisy bird with another after the first died.

The 80-year-old claimed in court that the noise was more of a croak than a traditional cockerel's crow.

But six of his neighbours from the cul-de-sac on the edge of Hampshire's New Forest argued otherwise in court.