AN EARLY-MORNING burglar startled a barista when she found him exposing himself under a table in her coffee shop, York magistrates heard.

The shift supervisor was preparing Caffe Nero's King Square cafe for opening on July 8 when she heard the sound of a chair moving where no-one was supposed to be, said Simon Ostler, prosecuting.

Investigating, she found homeless Maciej Piotr Benda, 29, lying under a table in an indecent pose. He had got in when a delivery was made 50 minutes earlier.

"Immediately she saw him, she panicked and ran out of the shop," said Mr Ostler.

CCTV had captured Benda getting into the cafe at 6.05am and hiding himself under a table. He had moved into a position where he could see the shift supervisor, who had arrived at 6.25am, and then returned to under the table where he knocked over a chair and startled the barista at about 7am.

Benda, of no fixed address, pleaded guilty to burglary and indecent exposure and was given a community order with 160 hours' unpaid work and 35 days' specified activities to address his problems with homelessness, employment and drinking.

He was also banned from going to the King Square cafe for a year, put on the sex offenders' register for five years, and ordered to pay £180 court costs and a £60 statutory surcharge. He had spent three weeks in prison on remand before he was sentenced.

Solicitor Neal Kutte said: "He is ashamed about what he did in terms of the sexual offence. He bitterly regrets it and he apologises for it in public."

Benda had committed the offences because he had drunk too much. At the time he had been averaging two or three bottles of wine a day, plus spirits, plus strong beer. He was jobless and penniless.

District judge Adrian Lower told Benda his drinking was not mitigation. "You chose to put yourself in a state where you were unable to behave properly. It was early morning, there would be no customers present, and she (the shift supervisor) had no idea what you were doing. "

The court heard Benda arrived in the UK from Poland three months earlier and after being unsuccessful with work and accommodation in the Leeds area had come to York in the hope of getting casual work during the summer tourist season.