A CUSTOMER who was accused of racially abusing a Selby shopkeeper has cleared his name.

Scott James Bruce appeared before court charged with using racially derogative words to store manager Mohinder Kaur when he walked into the convenience shop in Barlby Road last year.

When she refused to serve him, he again said another racial insult, she alleged from the witness box at York Crown Court.

“I felt very bad,” she had told the jurors.

“I am still a human being, regardless of whatever faith I have.”

Mr Bruce, 32, formerly of Selby and now of Leeds Road, Wakefield, had denied making racially aggravated insults or being racist.

He claimed he simply swore when he learned the shop had no energy drinks.

He said he was surprised that she accused him of being racist when he tried to buy some alcohol, and refused to serve him.

“I am not racist,” he told the jurors.

“I tried to explain to her about my upbringing. I have got hundreds of Asian friends, why would I be racist?”

Andrew Moore, defending Mr Bruce, had also dismissed the claims as “inexplicable”.

He said: “They almost defy common sense.”

The jury saw CCTV images of Mr Bruce and a friend entering the store at 5.13pm on May 14.

Speaking through a Punjabi interpreter, Mrs Kaur claimed she followed Mr Bruce out of the shop and took the number plate of his friend’s car before ringing police. The jury heard she has made five complaints about being the victim of racism since August 2007.

Mr Bruce told the jury he had drunk about nine pints before going into the store, but was not drunk. He said he was loud-mouthed and had previous convictions for theft and motoring offences, none of which were drink or drug related.

He and his wife, Kelly Bruce, said she had an Afro-Caribbean-white son with whom he got on well.

It took the jury only minutes after they retired to return a unanimous verdict of not guilty at York Crown Court yesterday.