A SCOT and three other men tied a young Christian to a “crucifix” and daubed his face and body with crosses during a sustained campaign of bullying, a court has heard.

Alex Puchir, 37, from Edinburgh, and Andrew Addison, 30, Joseph Rose, 21, Christopher Jackson, 22, all from Yorkshire, are also alleged to have tied the boy to a chair with duct tape and forced a dummy into his mouth before parading him in the street, York Crown Court was told.

The youngster was also allegedly given a “wedgie” by Addison, which caused him cuts and bruises.

The court heard the boy’s 10-month ordeal started in July 2014 and lasted until April after he started an apprenticeship with a shopfitting firm Direct Interior Solutions in Selby, North Yorkshire.

The men all deny one count of putting a person in fear by violence by harrassment and two counts of racially aggravated assault by beating.

Austin Newman, prosecuting, told the court that the “sustained bullying” took place as the group travelled around the country fitting out premises.

He said that he suffered bullying that “went beyond anything that could be described as banter or high jinks”.

In November 2014, while refitting a bank in York, Addison, who was being helped by another man, allegedly took hold of the teenager and tied him to a chair.

Mr Newman said: “In his mouth they put a child’s dummy. They took him outside the premises before taking him back inside and locking him in a room on his own.”

In the final assault at a bank refit in Hull, Addison, Jackson and Puchir are alleged to forced the complainant on to a cross fashioned out of lengths of wood and put him on to a square of plasterboard. “[The youngster] was tied down to the plasterboard by duct tape. He was suspended a metre above the ground in a way that resembled a crucifixion.”

The prosecutor added that the acts of drawing the crosses on the teenager were religious aggravated assault. Mr Newman added: “The Crown say the crosses were put on there as a reference to his religious observance.”

The trial continues.