AN ITALIAN bank manager who tried to kiss a woman cashier on the lips on Valentine’s Day has lost his job, been given a 14-month suspended jail sentence and fined after being convicted of “sexual violence”.

The ruling by Italy’s highest court puts another dent in the reputation of the macho Italian male, always on the lookout — according to the national myth — for a chance to pay a woman a compliment and overwhelm her with his charm. It was applauded by women’s rights campaigners.

The 50-year-old manager, named only as Valter under Italian privacy laws, must have thought he was safe enough planting the kiss six years ago.

Instead Valter, who managed a branch of the Banca di Credito Co-operativa at Preganziol near Treviso in northern Italy, will spend February 14 this year nursing his bruised reputation, the collapse of his career and a €1500 Euro (£1,024) fine after the Court of Cassation ruled that his “romantic gesture” amounted to sexual violence.

According to the court, Valter approached the cashier, named only as Federica, “with the clear intention of kissing her on the lips”.

Aware that the manager was approaching she twisted her head away, so he planted the kiss on her cheek instead.

Offended none the less, Federica, whose age was not given in court, went to the police and denounced her boss for “sexual harrassment”.

Valter insisted that the incident had been “banal” and said that the court action was “a stunt”.

He was found guilty and ordered to pay Federica’s costs.

He had been ruined by an impromptu gesture of affection, he complained yesterday. He would look for another job — “though not in a bank”. He had argued in his defence that his kiss had landed on the cashier’s face, not her lips, and this could not be construed as “libidinous”.

But Amedeo Postiglione, the presiding judge, said that the attempted kiss amounted to sexual violence.

“Sexual acts are not only those which relate to the genital area but also all those which relate to erogenous zones,” the ruling said. These included “acts of touching, patting and rubbing”, even if they were “rapid and insidious”.

Valentine is an Italian saint, a bishop of Terni martyred in Roman times on the feast of Lupercalia, the day when birds start to mate as the first hints of spring appear.

The ruling was greeted by Italian feminists as a victory for women who were “routinely mistreated” in the workplace.

Dacia Maraini, the writer and widow of the author Alberto Moravia — famous for his erotic descrptions in novels such as The Woman of Rome — said that there was “too much vulgarity and aggression against women in the workplace”.

Asked if a fine, a suspended sentence and loss of job were not too high a price to pay, Signora Maraini said that this reflected “the extent to which the girl obviously felt offended and degraded by such behaviour on the part of her boss. And she was quite right.

“Perhaps a judgment of this kind will force male bosses to think about how they behave toward women subordinate to them.”

She said that it was “about time limits were set to the arrogance and omnipotence of men.”

Women had the option of refusing unwanted advances, “but I know how difficult that can be sometimes.” An unwanted kiss was “an intolerable invasion of personal privacy”.

The Court of Cassation, largely staffed by elderly male appeal judges, has issued controversial and often contradictory verdicts on sexual mores over the past decade. This is a reflection of the confusion over acceptable sexual behaviour in a country which still has a Catholic culture but in which provocative images of naked or semi-naked women are the norm on television variety shows, calendars and magazine covers.

THE BOTTOM LINE ON PATTING AND PINCHING

It ruled that a married man or woman is guilty of adultery if he or she exhibits “emotional attachment” to a third person to the detriment of the marriage, even if no extra-marital sex takes place