A FORMER teacher has denied repeatedly exposing himself to his neighbours and passers-by while standing fully naked in his front room window.

Andrew Beasley claimed one of the female complainants held a grudge against him because of a tree he had chopped down.

He also suggested there had been collusion between the five women who had complained to police after “rumours” were spread about him at the school he worked.

But prosecutor Paul Newcombe described this as “absolute nonsense” and said for the most part the different complainants were strangers to each other, while one, a nurse, had been a family friend.

The 40-year-old defendant, of Allerton Close, Northallerton, North Yorkshire, denies nine counts of exposing himself, so as to cause alarm and distress, between 2008 and August last year.

During his evidence at Teesside Crown Court, Mr Beasley admitted he had been told by people throughout his life to put more clothes on, if for example he was just wearing shorts, but said he laughed off such comments.

Mr Beasley was asked about the most recent alleged incident, in August last year, involving a woman and her seven-year-old granddaughter.

He said on that day he would have been packing in his front room for a family holiday to Cornwall and denied he was naked as the woman walked past his home with the child.

Mr Beasley, who said he wished to return to teaching, told Mr Newcombe that anyone exhibiting the sort of behaviour “needs a talking to”.

He added: “I do not deliberately expose myself.”

Mr Newcombe suggested the defendant had become more and confident of getting away with what he was doing.

He said: “Exposing yourself to women just was not doing it any more. That seven year-old child was a new way of turning yourself on and gratifying yourself after the event.”

Mr Beasley denied this.

The prosecutor said Mr Beasley - who denied he had apologised to the husband of one of his neighbours after exposing himself to her – feared that his marriage would be destroyed if he was convicted and his future career left in ruins.

He said: “The unhappy truth is that you just cannot stop this. Someone is lying to the 12 people on this jury and that person is you.”

The trial continues.