Former England footballer Paul Gascoigne has been fined £1,000 for making a racist comment to a black security guard at a public event.

Dudley Magistrates Court was told Gascoigne humiliated Errol Rowe, who had been assigned to protect him during his An Evening with Gazza show, by asking him: "Can you smile please, because I can't see you?"

Ordering Gascoigne to pay Mr Rowe £1,000 in compensation, District Judge Graham Wilkinson told the retired star: "You sought to get a laugh from an audience of over 1,000 people because of the colour of Mr Rowe's skin."

The judge told Gascoigne - who admitted a racially aggravated public order charge - that his previous convictions were not relevant to the offence, committed at Wolverhampton's Civic Hall last November.

Mr Wilkinson, who praised the Crown Prosecution Service for taking the case to court, said Gascoigne's comment was an example of "insidious" racism which needed to be challenged.

The judge told Gascoigne: "Mr Rowe was clearly humiliated on stage, as part of an act.

"As a society it is important that we challenge racially aggravated behaviour in all its forms.

"It is the creeping 'low-level' racism that society still needs to challenge. A message needs to be sent that in the 21st century society that we live in, such action, such words will not be tolerated.

"It is not acceptable to laugh words like this off as some form of joke."