AN ULVERSTON restaurant worker accused of performing a sex act in front of an open window has been cleared of any criminal offence.

While magistrates accepted the evidence of the main prosecution witness at Geza Szakacs’s trial, they ruled it could not be proven beyond all reasonable doubt that the defendant’s actions were intended to cause distress.

They therefore found the 45-year-old, of King Street, Ulverston, not guilty of exposure. The charge includes a requirement that the defendant must have intended someone to see his genitals and caused alarm or distress.

Szakacs, who works at the British Raj in Ulverston’s King Street, appeared at Furness and District Magistrates’ Court yesterday in relation to an incident on April 18.

The main prosecution witness was Andrea Murray, store manager at Jute women’s clothes shop across the road from the Indian restaurant where the defendant works.

She explained how she had been standing at the till near the window of the shop at around 3.40pm, when she spotted Szakacs standing naked in a window above the British Raj.

She said she could see him clearly, facing her.

Miss Murray said: “When I initially looked, I was in a bit of shock. I was kind of like, ‘Am I really looking at this?’”

Asked how she knew for sure what was happening she added: “The way his hand was positioned, he was naked, and he was doing certain movements.

“I’ve got a clear view of him, so I imagine he’d have a clear view into the shop. I guess he must have caught my eye contact if I caught his.

“It’s not something you see every day, it’s not comfortable, it’s not something you want to see.”

While the defendant was unrepresented, Ms Maureen Fawcett was appointed by the court to carry out cross-questioning. Of Ms Fawcett’s suggestion that the defendant was drying himself and applying cream after a shower, Miss Murray said: “I don’t agree with that.”

Szakacs told the magistrates he could not see into Jute from his bedroom window and had no idea Miss Murray could see him.

He said he always had to get changed in his bedroom after a shower, because the bathroom where he lived was unhygienic. He explained his room was very small, with few choice of places to stand, and that his products such as hair oils and body creams were kept by the window.

He said he understood why the witness thought she had seen what she had but laughed and protested at the suggestion that he had been pleasuring himself.

When Mr Lee Dacre, prosecuting, asked the defendant if his actions might have been revenge for a previous occasion when Miss Murray had refused to give him a discount on clothes, Szakacs said: “This is an absolutely offensive question. A thousand per cent no.”