The court heard the man was found in a sauna without trousers, claiming he was “stretching”. Zhang Xin was swimming at a university recreation centre when a woman in the sauna noticed him staring at her.
The 59-year-old man was allegedly wearing shorts that “reached to his knees” and was touching himself. Prosecutors said he got a “high” from the feeling of pool water splashing on his buttocks.
Staff at the Tom Husband Leisure Centre at the University of Salford met him, told him he was not allowed in and called the police. Mr Zhang was charged at an earlier hearing and pleaded guilty to one count of outraging public morals.
He admitted to touching his private parts but denied masturbating or finding it “sexual.” In his confession, Zhang said he “felt cold after swimming, so I put my hands in my shorts to warm myself up,” MEN reported.
He appeared at Bolton Magistrates’ Court on Monday, February 3, where magistrates were asked to rule on whether to accept his version of events. After hours of hearing, the judge said there were “inconsistencies” in his statements and ruled “the act was for the purpose of sexual gratification”. He will be sentenced in June, at which time “all options will be considered”.
Mr Zhang has lived in the UK for more than 20 years and visits the leisure centre five to six times a week. The court heard he had been a member for about a decade.
He said he spent almost an hour in the pool one day in March 2023, swimming more than 1,000 metres and then going to the sauna. Prosecutor Emily Creasy said he was seen “taking off his shorts, massaging his buttocks on a bench and fondling himself in the sauna, while looking at (the woman) through the glass window of the sauna”.
“He stood up and looked at me. His trousers were down to his knees. He was grabbing his penis and I could see his hand moving up and down. I thought, ‘Oh my God!’” the woman told the court.
He lasted “three or four minutes” before a male staff member walked in. “I don’t know if he came to me, I don’t know if he came to me,” the woman added, adding that she was “100 percent sure” it was a sexual assault.
The woman continued, “I don’t understand what else you can do? If only he could give me a reasonable explanation.”
Referring to Zhang’s claim that she was “very cold,” she said: “He was in a sauna and it was 100 degrees Fahrenheit.” She said the experience left her feeling “angry and vulnerable, I would say.”
The officer who came to question him said he had not seen any such behaviour. He also said the woman looked “agitated” and “pale” and told him: “I think he was having sex.”
“I walked in through the glass door and asked him, ‘What are you doing?’” the man said. He said Zhang covered his private parts with one hand and raised his other hand, saying, “No, no, no” and “it’s not what you think.”
“To be honest, I was really shocked to see someone take off their shorts in a sauna and do that,” the employee said.
He said Zhang had “done some strange things before,” including pulling down his shorts “near the pool vents,” but management had previously said they “didn’t have enough evidence to bring him back and talk to him.”
“You shouldn’t put your hands on private parts of the body. This is a public place, there will be children swimming there, you shouldn’t do that,” he said.
The manager who spoke to him told the court that when he asked Mr Zhang what he was doing, he replied: “My chicken” and “gestured with his hands”, which he said meant he was “adapting”.
Mr Zhang, of Foundry Lane, Manchester, told police: “My genitals are called chickens. “I was adjusting the inside of my shorts because they were loose due to eczema,” he told police.
Zhang told the court he was very cold at the time and was “warming himself up”. The court heard he “denied masturbating but admitted it may have appeared that way”.
He personally testified that he was in the sauna because he was “cold, tired and hungry.” Through a Chinese interpreter, he stated that the temperature in the sauna was set by the customers.
“I sat there for about seven or eight minutes and still couldn’t cool down,” he said. “I realized my belt was too tight, so I loosened it.”
He said that after examining his private parts, he became concerned that “there might be some disease causing problems.” “I was just trying to warm it up,” he said, and then heard “a knock on the window.”
“I tried to explain to the other side that that was not what they saw. I also said ‘no’.” Defence barrister Samuel Hinds said: “Mr Zhang accepted that his behaviour that day was inappropriate but categorically denied that there was any sexual innuendo.”
“He said he was warming up. He admitted that even though he had nowhere to do it, it was all he did.”
However, tribunal chair Rachel Mesri said: “All four prosecution witnesses gave consistent and corroborating evidence. Mr Zhang’s evidence was inconsistent. He gave three different and inconsistent accounts of the conduct. We find that the conduct was for sexual gratification.”
They ordered a pre-sentence report before Zhang is sentenced on June 24. The offence carries a maximum penalty of six months in prison and Ms Mercy said: “All options are on the table.”
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