Lingerie-clad ex-lawyer thought woman in bed was a giant panda

An ex-lawyer who sneaked into a woman’s bedroom while wearing stockings and a purple G-string has been cleared by a jury after he explained he believed the woman was a giant panda. Former high flyer Desmond Moran, 53, who hails from Tipperary, Ireland, said he had taken so many drugs that he thought the woman was a panda. Jurors at Southwark Crown Court in south London heard on Tuesday that the woman had been been sleeping in her bed at her Bayswater flat with her two children on July 14 2015 when she awoke to see Moran standing in the doorway while wearing the stockings and G-string.

The jury also heard Mr Moran was once a high flying lawyer, having worked in New York, Singapore and Hong Kong, but had fallen on hard times in recent years and had been living in hostels. Mr Moran, who was arrested at the scene by police, admitted in an interview he was high on crack cocaine and crystal meth at the time and he had been sleeping rough for a number of years prior to the offence. A jury cleared him of trespassing with intent to commit a sexual offence after just 30 minutes deliberation. The court had earlier heard harrowing evidence from the woman who awoke to find Mr Moran staring at her. The woman, who cannot be named, said: “I woke up and I saw him there and he was just looking at us, I felt like he was looking at me even though the two kids were there.



“I said: 'Who are you, what are you doing? What are you doing in my apartment?' That's when I started getting quite anxious and I started screaming at him, and the children woke up.” The woman said that she was shouting at Mr Moran but he didn’t respond. When she see looked closely at him, she realised he wasn’t wearing trousers or a jacket. “It was costume, and when he went to the window and turned around I could see his bottom – I think he had a G-string on.” Fearful for her children's safety, the woman said she slammed Mr Moran into a door several times and tried to forced him out of the room. When he left, she ran off to her nanny’s room with her children and called the police. When the police arrived, they found Mr Moran in the basement of the block of flats.

He was still in his fishnet stockings and G-string when police arrived but was so agitated it took three officers to put him in handcuffs. In his subsequent police interview, he claimed that he went into the block of flats to get a bed for the night. “I honestly didn't see a woman on the bed, I didn't see any children in the bed, I honestly thought it was a big panda bear in the bed, that's what it looked like to me. I had taken some drugs but I am pretty certain that's what I saw, I didn't see any woman, I didn't see any kids... were they under the panda?” He continued: “I went to the bay window and the window was open, and I thought 'why is the window open?' I went over and I looked down into the street. Then I thought 'I'm just going to leave. I was nearly out of the room, I hadn't seen the woman, then it all happened so quickly – she was screaming 'who are you, get out of my house'.” Mr Moran sobbed when the verdict was delivered.