A WOMAN has told how she was shocked to wake up in the middle of the night to find a naked man in her bed.

She screamed and kicked out and the man fell out of bed and fled, still naked, downstairs.

Mold Crown Court heard allegations that he got dressed and came back upstairs, but she shouted at him and he left her home – only to be arrested by police in the garden next door.

He had left his socks behind in her living room.

Chef Russel Norman Lee, 49, of High Street, Llanidloes, claimed that he was so drunk he didn’t realise where he was.

He said that he believed that he was at home with his wife and had no memory of going to the woman’s house, stripping off and getting into bed.

Lee denied trespass with intent to commit a sexual offence and a second charge of sexual assault.

He was cleared of sexual assault at the direction of Judge Keith Thomas, after the woman said that he had not touched her sexually.

And he was cleared of the trespass offence by the jury of six men and six women after a short retirement.

Judge Thomas said that no-one would condone the defendant for getting drunk and walking into someone’s home, getting undressed and getting into bed with her.

But the law required that specific offences had been committed for someone to be convicted and he said he agreed that in the present case the offences alleged had not been committed.

Prosecuting barrister Anna Pope said that the woman had left her back door open one night in May because her dog was ill.

She went to bed after midnight, fell asleep “but woke up to find someone in bed with her. He was not wearing any clothes,” she said.

The prosecutor said the woman was shocked, screamed, kicked out and he fell out of bed.

While he was drunk, it was the prosecution case that he knew what he was doing, said Miss Pope.

The woman had banned him from her home previously because it was alleged that he started making sexual advances towards her which were not welcome.

Defending barrister Oliver King said that if his client intended to sexually assault her he had plenty of opportunity but had not done so.

He had not molested her while she slept, and he had not tried to kiss her or touch her sexually.

The defendant was drunk and had simply gone to sleep – in the wrong bed.

When she and he awoke, he had simply run off in panic and had no intention of touching her sexually, said Mr King.