Because John was constantly harassed

[Bassim]

I am wondering if my sentence is grammatically correct.

Because John was constantly harassed by the drunken youth, who threw all kinds of rubbish into his garden, he erected a massive wall around his property, despite lacking a building permission.

 

[emsr2d2]

Either remove "a" before "building permission" or replace it with "the requisite".

 

[GoesStation]

Unless the harassment was always conducted by a young man who has been named in a previous sentence, you should omit the definite article.

 

[Bassim]

GoesStation,
Now I understand that I made a mistake.
I should have written instead "youths" Do I need "the" in that case?
Is my sentence correct like this:
"Because John was constantly harassed by the drunken youths, who threw all kinds of rubbish..."

 

[emsr2d2]

The same point applies. You can only use the definite article there if you have previously identified/mentioned those drunken youths. Otherwise, it should be "Because John was constantly [being] harassed by drunken youths/by a group of drunken youths, who ...".

 

[Tdol]

I think the drunken youth could refer to a specific group, for instance encompassing all of the drunks in a place, but singular or plural, it has to refer to specific drunks. If you want to be more general, remove the article.