A gay verger has been cleared of sexually assaulting a female visitor in a West Yorkshire cathedral, having expressed his “mortification” at the allegations.
Nicholas Whitaker was cleared of any wrongdoing in less than 30 minutes of the trial at Leeds Crown Court on Friday, following allegations that he had touched a woman’s breast while she was talking to the head verger in Wakefield Cathedral in July, the BBC reports.
The 34-year-old from Richmond Road, Wakefield, told the court: “I thought it would be a fun idea to go behind her and give her a brief hug from behind and say ‘hello’,” adding that any contact with her breast was “unintentional”. He denied allegations that the contact lasted between 30 seconds and a minute, according to the BBC.
The verger informed the jury that he is gay, and claimed he had “no reason to touch her breasts, no wish to touch her breasts.”
The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told the court: “He put his arms underneath my arms and just grabbed hold of my bust and groped and felt and squeezed. It was awful,” the Mirror reports.
