A chef from Manorbier has been convicted of sexually assaulting a serving soldier he “rescued” from the pouring rain.

Wayne Edward Mansbridge, aged 47, who works as a chef in Tenby, was cleared of a more serious charge of rape, assault by penetration and a second indecent assault charge.

A jury at Swansea crown court had heard how the soldier had been attending a course at the Castlemartin range. He went into Tenby with some fellow soldiers but was ejected from the Tenby House hotel after becoming “drunk and rowdy.”

He could not afford a taxi and began to walk back to Castlemartin.

Mansbridge saw him on the Penally bypass as he drove home from work.

The weather was atrocious and he offered the soldier a lift.

But he did not have enough petrol to get to Castlemartin and back and suggested he stayed the night at his home in Hounsell Avenue, Manorbier.

The soldier told the jury he could remember waking up in bed with Mansbridge performing a sex act on him. He said he pretended to be asleep.

The following morning, he said, he awoke for a second time and Mansbridge was again sexually assaulting him. This was the offence for which Mansbridge was convicted.

On his return to Castlemartin he immediately contacted the police and made a complaint.

Mansbridge told the jury that after arriving at his home “we just started kissing.”

He agreed sex had taken place but said it had been with the soldier’s consent and denied that it went as far as intercourse.

Judge Paul Thomas said he would sentence Mansbridge after a probation officer had prepared a report into his background.

A prison sentence, he said, was “overwhelmingly likely.”

Mansbridge was granted bail meanwhile.