Last September in North London, a 61-year-old IT worker allegedly went looking for love in all the wrong places. So wrong in fact, that he wound up in Wood Green crown court in front of jury that reportedly was less than sympathetic to the man’s fruitless search for companionship.

You see, jurors were told the story of Paul Lovell who was spotted by a picnicking couple September 4, allegedly attempting to have intercourse with a sheep near the Tottenham Hotspur training ground in north London. The court heard powerful testimony in which witnesses placed Lovell 250 yards away from their picnic “laying on the floor, taking his shorts off,” near a line of trees before getting busy with the sheep.

But jurors took their civic duty with the utmost seriousness, until they heard the reason Mr. Lovell turned his affections toward the sheep. They broke into fits of laughter after hearing that a cow rejected his attempts to procure fellatio of the bovine variety. When cows would not fellate him, the court was told that the accused decided to “try his luck with some sheep.”

Rather than admiring his “can do” spirit, the jury erupted in laughter invoking a warning from Judge James Patrick who said “I well understand there are aspects of it [the case] that are unusual and amusing. If you do find the case particularly funny, if you can try to get over your laughter over lunch that would be great.”

Prosecutors had previously dropped a charge of indecent exposure due to lack of evidence but adjusted the wording of a second charge of outraging public indecency to include “fellatio with a cow.”

Lovell is currently on bail with the condition that he not return to the place of his alleged romp.