I wasn’t sniffing toilets, I dropped my glasses down the pan
A RETIRED headmaster last night insisted claims he was caught sniffing a toilet seat in a village hall are “outlandish nonsense”.
Roger Filbert was arrested on a charge of outraging public decency after he was found in the ladies lavvies at the hall in Mossthwaite, a small village outside the Cumbrian market town of Splint.
Reports suggested that Mr Filbert – former head of a prestigious local school that cannot be named for legal reasons – was “furiously masturbating” as he sniffed the seat during a break in a church council meeting. Fogged
But the 69- year- old father- of- three insisted the matter was a “terrible misunderstanding”.
He explained: “It’s very simple. I had gone into the kitchen for some tea and I lifted the top of the urn to check the level of the hot water inside.
“My glasses became fogged, so I took them off and headed to the gents for a piece of paper towel to wipe them.
“Without my glasses, however, I mistakenly went into the ladies and once inside, disorientated, I dropped my spectacles down the pan.
“I was on my knees reaching to get them out and a wasp flew in and buzzed around my midriff. I was swatting that away when the church secretary, Mrs Perkins, came in.
“I was unable to explain amid all her screaming and so a constable was summoned.
“The idea that I was sniffing the seat and masturbating – furiously or in any other manner – is outlandish nonsense.”
Mr Filbert says local ill feeling after he won planning application for a conservatory at his £ 500,000 home may be behind his “persecution”.
Local sources in Mossthwaite say Mr Filbert’s wife of 35 years, Janice, has “gone away for a rest” as she’s “taken to the bottle again”.
A police insider said: “If I had a pound for every time I’ve heard the glasses- down- the- pan- and- wasparoundmidriff excuse, I’d be the richest bobby in Cumbria!”