MONTREAL, May 28 (UPI)

A Canadian human rights tribunal in Quebec has ordered a father and son to pay $15,000 in damages to a Montreal-area gay couple they admitted harassing.

The complaint to the Quebec Human Rights Tribunal was based on incidents in 2003 when Theo Wouters and Roger Thibault complained the boy, who was then 17 and can’t be identified, threw a roll of toilet paper and a firecracker on the couple’s lawn.

In another confrontation, the teen was arrested for threatening to “wreck his fist” on their faces, The Gazette newspaper in Montreal said.

The youth was arrested but never charged, as prosecutors suggested an apology would suffice, along with psychiatric counseling.

An apology was made, but the gay couple went to the tribunal seeking $37,000 in damages with claims the apology was only a ruse to avoid prosecution, the report said.

The judge awarded the couple $5,000 each in moral damages and $2,500 each in punitive damages, the report said.

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