Sex case restaurateur cleared (From Penarth Times)

Sex case restaurateur cleared

A FORMER Penarth restaurant owner, who made homemade sex movies with a waitress and four schoolgirls, has been cleared at Cardiff Crown Court.

Antonio Zanellato, 62, of Albany Court, Beach Road, admitted making the videos, but told a jury he would "never have touched them" if he knew their true ages were just 14 . The Italian, who once ran the Mediterraneo restaurant, said the first girl was introduced to him by his former kitchen worker Sian Rogers, 28 - who told him she was "up for it."

He said: "I said yes, as long as she was over 17. I emphasised that.

I never had any doubt in my mind about their ages. If I did I would never have touched them."

Cardiff Crown Court heard Zanellato taped his sexual encounters.

He agreed he put anything that "tickled his fancy" onto a compilation tape.

Homemade sex videos of the waitress in a jacuzzi with a schoolgirl were shown to the jury.

In another clip shown in court, two teenage girls danced in the nude in Zanellato's bedroom.

The jury cleared him of three counts of taking indecent photographs in December 2002 - but failed to reach verdicts on a further nine counts of taking indecent photographs and seven indecent assaults.

But Judge Roderick Denyer QC stayed the remaining counts, ruling there was not enough evidence for a fair trial.

The tapes were found by police locked in a safe at his home. Zanellato had denied all the charges.