A pensioner obsessed with "policing" Battersea Park has been fined after failing to stop verbally and physically intimidating staff.

Henry "Jan" Copeman, 69, is running a one-man campaign to stop Wandsworth Council using the park for corporate events, freeing it for public use.

The council took out an injunction against him in March last year, banning him from threatening or using violence against any park staff and from using indecent language or removing property from the park.

But last Monday he was fined £500 for breaching the injunction after Wandsworth County Court heard he had reduced a female member of staff to locking herself in her office.

Judge Robert Winstanley heard Copeman, who was banned from the park for life in January, had shouted and sworn at the woman in the park offices in November last year.

He made an "obscene and aggressive gesture" to her after getting annoyed because he could not see the council's head of security and events immediately.

Copeman said after the hearing: "The door was slammed in my face and I swore and pointed two fingers at them, which put me clearly in the wrong, but I acted instinctively to having the door shut in my face."

The court was told that a few days later he used "vulgar and offensive" language about a member of staff, and on November 29, made an insulting homophobic gesture about another.

Judge Winstanley said Copeman's language towards members of the park staff was highly offensive and described one of the breaches as very serious.

The injunction was originally imposed on Copeman in March last year after the court heard about his persistent antisocial and threatening behaviour in the park.

On one occasion, he assaulted a pregnant member of staff and left her locked inside her vehicle "sobbing and shaking" while Mr Copeman banged on her window. He shouted: "I will find you wherever you are in the park and I can get you any time."

Cabinet member for environment and public services, Councillor Kathy Tracey, said it was unacceptable for Mr Copeman to repeatedly abuse, intimidate and threaten members of staff.

Copeman said: "All I want is the park to be kept free for public use. I am worried about the kids on the Doddington estate to whom Battersea Park is their childhood. Why should they be denied a place to roller skate so the council can make money from corporate events?"

shalls@london.newsquest.co.uk