Customers at McDonalds in Watford were shocked by the unusual sight of a man reportedly watching “hardcore pornography” in full view of dinner-time customers.

The man, described as white, in his late 30s, and wearing a chequered black and white jumper and jeans, was sitting at the front of the restaurant in The Parade last night.

One customer, who asked not to be named, said: “He was blatantly watching hardcore pornography.

“There was no sound but the screen wasn’t even slightly hidden, it was in the middle of the table. He was sitting there as if it was just a normal film.

“He was towards the tills, to the left, sitting on the end chair. The screen was facing upwards so anyone above him or walking to the toilets could easily have seen.

“It was 6.30pm and there were children everywhere. The restaurant was full with about 20 people, young girls, teenagers.

“I don’t know exactly who witnessed it but there were people sitting next to him on the right hand side.

“It’s played on my conscience a lot, I have two young girls and I could have been in the restaurant with them.”

The man said he told the duty manager what was going on and was disappointed by the reaction.

He added: “When I told the manager it was like I was speaking a different language. It’s not something they come across every day so they probably don’t know how to handle it.

“I wanted to close the door and call the police, at least if he had run off the police could use the CCTV.”

Lucy Aldington, a representative of McDonalds said the CCTV from the restaurant showed the manager approaching the man, asking him to leave “within seconds” of the complaint.

She added: “We sincerely apologise to this customer for any offence caused. We are a family restaurant, and have stringent measures in place on our free WIFI to block websites that may contain adult material.

“We operate a zero tolerance approach to anyone found viewing illicit content in our restaurants and when alerted, the customer was immediately asked to leave by our restaurant management.”