This is the moment two drunken yobs openly urinated just feet away from Brighton's war memorial.

The two unidentified men were spotted relieving themselves in the direction of the War Memorial in the Old Steine, Brighton, at 9.30pm on Monday night.

Relatives and friends of those who died in the line of duty described the actions of the men as “disgusting” and “unacceptable”.

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Eyewitnesses to the incident said they saw the group pointing at signs on the memorial and laughing while carrying out the act.

Mel Poole, 28 from Hove, saw the incident as she waited for a bus. She said her boyfriend pointed out the incident originally involving five men but only managed to capture two of them on the phone.

She said: “It's just so disrespectful considering the memorial is there for all the people who fought for our country.

“I saw them pointing to the placard and then laughing and then they just carried on doing what they were doing. I think if anybody else saw it as well they would be outraged.”

Tom Freret, 26 from Lewes, organised a tribute to his friend Lee Rigby who was brutally killed on the streets of London in May.

He said: “It's totally unacceptable, I think it's disgusting. I don't even want people sitting on war memorials let alone doing that on them.

“They could have done this anywhere apart from by a war memorial.”

Worthing-based Edward Bell, first officer at the Irish Defence Forces Veterans UK, said: “I find it very offensive and I would suggest that these men are found and made to clean up what they have done.

“I would like to take all these men and show them a video of what really went on during the wars.”

A British Legion spokesman said: “The legion is saddened to hear of any such incident.

“War memorials and graves honour the memory of British armed forces who made the ultimate sacrifice and those who defended the freedom we enjoy.”

The incident is not the first of its kind where disrespectful actions have been taken at a war memorial.

In 2006 a Remembrance Sunday service at the war memorial in Chapel Road, Worthing, was marred by a swastika daubed across the names of the dead and the letters “SS”.

Three years later, student Philip Laing was spared jail after urinating on a war memorial while on a bar crawl in Sheffield.

In 2011, Charlie Gilmour, son of Pink Floyd guitarist David, was jailed for 16 months for violent disorder after swinging from the Cenotaph during student protests.

Inspector Gareth Davies from Sussex Police said: "People who relieve themselves in public behave antisocially and make the city dirty and unwelcoming.

“There are enough toilets in the city for there to be no need for this to happen.

"We take all incidents of urinating in public seriously and deal with any offenders we catch.”

He added that a man who was recently caught in the act by an officer urinating in Brighton's Pavilion Gardens agreed to do an hour's unpaid work at the cafe in the gardens as “community resolution” for his crime.