‘Insane’ Newbury supermarket sex pest ‘thought he was relieving poverty’ by groping women

A SUPERMARKET sex pest was clinically insane at the time he trawled the stores for women to assault, jurors heard today, Monday.

The culprit bizarrely told police he thought he was combatting hunger in Africa by groping the horrified shoppers.

Not all of his victims were identified and interviewed by police.

But one woman in the public gallery became distressed and sobbed as the defence counsel told Reading Crown Court his client should be acquitted of the offences because of his mental condition at the time.

Gheorghita Frexit came to England from Romania to better himself and to find work, jurors have been told.

But he was sacked prior to his arrest for behaving oddly at work.

The 33-year-old, of West Street, Newbury, faces six charges of sexually assaulting women in Newbury town centre supermarkets on various dates in June and July last year.

John Carmichael, prosecuting, said Frexit was seen smirking after his repeated sexual assaults.

But, summing up for the defence at the close of the trial today, James McCrindle said his client did not dispute the facts presented by the prosecution.

Instead, he maintained, he was not guilty by virtue of temporary insanity.

Mr McCrindle added that, to prove its case, “the defence just has to establish that it is more likely than not” that Frexit did not know what he was doing - or, if he did, that he did not realise that it was wrong.

He went on: “He believed that, the more women he touched in that very offensive way, the more he was relieving poverty in Africa.

“It was all part of a game and God was directing him to do this.”

Mr McCrindle said: “However insane that sounds, think about it.

“He has no criminal record and no cautions.

“The only thing that makes sense, I suggest, is that he was insane at the time.”

He suggested the only logical conclusion jurors should draw was that “something has gone seriously wrong in his mind.”

Mr McCrindle reminded jurors that one of two consultant psychiatrists called by the defence had testified that the smirking remarked upon by victims and supermarket staff was “utterly consistent with his condition…a sense of relief that he was able to do that which his delusions were directing him to do.”

The jurors retired at lunchtime today and are considering their verdicts.