An earl found guilty of harassing an ex-caretaker of his £12 million country mansion during an argument in the fruit aisle at Waitrose has won his appeal.
The Earl of Cardigan, 63, was cleared of launching a tirade of abuse at Prue Chetwynd-Talbot while she was choosing bananas.
He had been convicted of the offence and fined in November last year, but it was overturned by a judge and two magistrates.
It was the 17th time in two years he had been hauled before the courts accused of harassing his estate staff - but the first time it had resulted in a conviction, according to The Sun.
The court heard at the time of the alleged Waitrose incident in Marlborough, in April 2013, Lord Cardigan was still involved in rows over the estate.
Chetwynd-Talbot was living in the Grade One listed 100 room stately pile as resident caretaker, and she said she bumped into Lord Cardigan while choosing bananas.
She told the court: 'He looked at me and said 'Oh, yuck, bitch'. He was looking right at me.
'As to his actual demeanour: his eyes were just looking at me saying these things. I was hearing them and I was horrified.
'It wasn't shouted, there was nobody else around. It was just spoken, the way I'm talking to you.'
Chetwynd-Talbot said when she was leaving the store he pointed at her and said 'Bitch, Prue, bitch', at her in a 'mocking' voice from about 20ft away.
Defending, Edward Henry, said the first incident hadn't happened, and the during the second he was pointing her out to friend David Bloom.
Lord Cardigan told the court the prosecution was part of a campaign against him by John Moore, the trustee of the estate he was in the throws of getting removed.
He said: 'Mr Moore and his three employees, one of whom is Prue Chetwynd-Talbot, formulated a plan to discredit me in the forthcoming High Court action by getting me convicted of something, anything.
'In the course of the next nine months 17, seventeen, different prosecutions were brought by these three people. Every single one crashed and burned.'
He added that he was pointing her out because she had once confronted his wife and Mr Bloom's children while they blackberry picking on the estate.
When the case was initially heard at North West Wiltshire Magistrates Court in Chippenham, Wiltshire, last November, Lord Cardigan was fined £200.
The earl was also ordered to pay a £20 victim surcharge plus £350 costs for using threatening words or behaviour to cause harassment, alarm or distress under the section five of the Public Order Act.
But clearing him, Recorder Stephen Hall said: 'We are not sure the case is made out. Accordingly we allow the appeal.'
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