Locations
Blands Cliff, Scarborough
Description
A MAN who performed a sex act in front of customers and staff in McDonald's in York city centre has been jailed.
Lewis James Barnes, 21, has also been banned from unzipping or removing his trousers or shorts in public for the next 10 years.
York magistrates heard he exposed himself and performed the sex act in the fast food restaurant in Blake Street in York early on October 6.
“It was prolonged and it was in a very busy public place in McDonald's,” the Bench told him.
“It would have offended staff and customers.”
Barnes, of Pavilion Square, Scarborough, pleaded guilty to outraging public decency and failure to attend court at a previous hearing.
He was jailed for 24 weeks and ordered to pay a £122 statutory surcharge.
He was also put on the sex offenders’ register for five years and made subject to a sexual harm prevention order, also for five years.
Under the order he is banned from unzipping or removing his trousers, shorts or any other garment covering his private parts in public and has to use a private cubicle in any public toilets.
He is also barred from McDonald's in Blake Street for five years and forbidden to contact, either directly or indirectly, those who gave evidence against him for the same period.
For him, Craig Robertson said he had issues which he knew he needed to tackle.
He had had a “complete breakdown in his behaviour” last July which had led to him committing offences.
But in January 2020, he was a changed man.
“He is embarrassed, he is ashamed,” said the defence solicitor.
Mr Robertson disputed a probation service assessment that Barnes was such a high risk offender that he was unsuitable for community sentences such as unpaid work or rehabilitation activity days.