“Half a second turned into a year of hell.” How a man who brushed past an actress was accused of sexual assault.

A commuter has told of how a simple trip through a busy train station changed his life after he was accused and sent to court for a “sex crime” that never took place.

Mark Pearson, a 51-year-old artist and picture framer, was accused of sexually assaulting a well-known actress at London’s Waterloo station while he was on his way home from work.

It was a commute he took every day, a routine, almost mundane part of his life, but what he didn’t know as he briskly walked through Waterloo Station on his way home was that this day was to change his life.

In the year since the encounter Mark Pearson has been labelled a sex criminal, he has been maligned and his reputation almost ruined. He now suffers anxiety and sees a therapist.

All because of a chance happening with a complete stranger.

The encounter took place in December 2014. The woman, who was headed to a rehearsal, had just been to a yoga class and was rushing through the busy station. She claimed that Pearson penetrated her with three fingers for “two or three seconds” followed by a violent blow to her left shoulder.

Their subsequent encounter drew Pearson into what he calls a year-long ‘Kafkaesque nightmare’ from which he has only just escaped.

The actress reported the assault to police who tracked down Pearson through his travel card and arrested him. Four months later he was told he was being prosecuted and would go to trial.

‘It is horrible and frightening to contemplate going to prison for a crime you haven’t committed. Particularly a sex crime. We have all heard about how sex offenders are treated in prison” he told The Mail on Sunday.

While CCTV did not conclusively prove there was any form of physical contact between the two strangers it still led to the arrest.

The actress told police that Pearson “clocked her” and then gestured with his newspaper for her to pass by.

“The next thing I know, his hand is up me…. and then I felt this enormous blow on my left shoulder” she said in her statement.

Her evidence claimed “I staggered and yelled… and people just stopped all around me, and I was looking back after him.’ Then she said he ‘shot off… legging it towards the ticket barriers.”

After a lengthy investigation the woman finally had her day in court. This week after a three day trial a jury of men and women at Blackfriars Crown Court took 90 minutes to clear Pearson of the charge of “sexual assault by penetration”.

The court was shown the CCTV with Pearson at Waterloo Tube station that was used to prosecute him. In it he rushes through, in his left hand-  the one which he is supposed to have used to assault the actress -Pearson carried a newspaper and in the right he holds his bag.

Without even breaking his stride he brushes past the woman.  His pace does not change, he does not “shoot off”. In fact his contact with the woman is less than half a second.

Pearson’s lawyer, Mark Bagshaw told the court that the allegation was not true given the half-second time frame.

Mr Pearson told the court “I would have had to crouch down, put my hand up the woman’s skirt… penetrate her, take my hand out again… all while holding the newspaper and walking along the concourse… It’s preposterous… It is against everything I believe in as a human being. I did nothing.”

In the three-day trial there were no witnesses, no forensic evidence and the actress failed to pick out Mark Pearson in an identity parade of video images after the alleged assault.

The jury heard that the woman, who can never be named, was wearing a coat and jacket and a thin dress over “training pants” following a yoga class,

Mr Pearson told the Mail on Sunday “One of the many frightening aspects is that this could have happened to anyone.”

“For me, half a second turned into a year of hell. I feel I have undergone a form of mental torture sanctioned by the state.

“It is just bizarre.”

He questioned why the charges were brought forth in the first place when the CCTV clearly shows him holding a newspaper and only brushing past the actress for half a second.

“Why couldn’t the CPS have used common sense?”

The case has sparked much debate in the UK with one journalist, Martin Daubney the former editor of men’s magazine Loaded calling for an end to “ treating all men as sex pests”.

He said Mr Pearson’s case highlights a “misplaced war” on men.

“At ground level, men are being made to feel increasingly hated by a society and legal system that seems to say “all men are capable of evil – if only you look hard enough”.