A tale of two British queens

Meet the Tudors:

Bryn and James Tudor made headlines in 2005 when they became the first homosexual couple to tie the knot in a civil partnership in Birmingham.

But they were later subjected to three years of abuse at their home in Shirley by their next door neighbour, Baljit Koonar.

Koonar, 29, was handed an 18 month supervision order when he appeared in court last week and was also ordered to pay £150 compensation to his victims.

Yet just weeks earlier he and his family were rescued from a terrifying blaze by the big-hearted couple he had abused.

James said: “I was sleeping when something woke me up at around 5am. I could taste smoke in the back of my mouth.

“I couldn’t see anything out of the front window, but when I went to the back there was smoke billowing out of next door and the family were on the roof.

“Baljit was on there with his wife, their two young kids and the children’s grandmother.

“I shouted to them to stay calm and rushed down into the back garden.”

One of the Tudors’ neighbours found a ladder and a rescue operation began.

James said: “We managed to get them down off the roof and brought them into our living room.

‘‘They were all shocked, the kids were scared.

“I got the children plenty of drinks of water and tried to keep them calm with some chocolate.”

But this bit is sooo British:

In 2008 a court hearing saw Baljit Koonar forced to sign a Good Neighbour Agreement, but this did not stop the abuse. Mr Koonar was also told to stop eating the Tudors' tame rainbow-colored unicorns. He explained that he was not a Hindu but a Muslim and therefore not a vegetarian.

Okay, I made up the bit about unicorns. They weren't actually rainbow-colored. The Tudors had painted them that way to match their gay decor.