Syrian refugee 'sexually assaulted woman as she walked home from nightclub', court hears

A young woman told a jury she was approached in the street by a Syrian refugee from an asylum seeker hotel as she walked back from a nightclub.

The woman, 21, said that after she left the XOXO club in Falkirk, her route to a friend’s took her across a skate park.

Before she got there, she came across the man, whom she did not know, who was on his phone.

Jurors heard it is agreed that the man was Muhammad Sheikhi, described as a refugee resident at the Cladhan Hotel in Falkirk at the time.

Describing a 34-minute encounter, the woman said she was left barefoot after Sheikhi broke her shoes.

Sheikhi, 23, denies sexually assaulting the woman with the intent to rape her in Kerse Lane, Falkirk, and at the nearby Bellsmeadow skate park.

He also denies sexually assaulting a 22-year-old woman under a railway bridge, also on Kerse Lane, not far from the Cladhan.

Both incidents are said to have taken place in the early hours of Sunday, November 30, 2025.

Stirling Sheriff Court heard that during the day on Saturday November 29, 2025, there had been protests at the Cladhan Hotel in the town, which was being used to house asylum seekers.

The woman whose shoes were taken off said she passed Sheikhi on Kerse Lane about 2.40am.

She said that as she did so, Sheikhi “shoved his phone in my face saying ‘Snapchat'”.

She said she realised Sheikhi – who was speaking a foreign language and using his phone to translate – wanted her to add him on the messaging app.

She said: “I was confused. I was laughing at him because I thought he was joking at first.

“He kind of touched my feet. He was being weird about my shoes.”

She said she continued down Kerse Lane, and the man then took her shoes.

She said: “I was wearing strappy high heels. He had to unbuckle them, then unstrap them from around my ankle.

“He actually broke my shoes.”

The woman agreed that Sheikhi gave her his own shoes, and walked on in his socks.

The woman said she was “really weirded out”, so she video-called a friend, who screen-recorded part of the alleged incident.

The blurry 30-second clip was shown to the jury.

The woman said she told Sheikhi she was going to walk away from him, but he kept following her, and must have run to catch up with her, because when she began to walk down a grassy area towards the skate park, she realised he was right behind her.

She said: “He grabbed me by the shoulder to try and turn me round to face him, then pushed me up against a tree.”

Prosecutor Jamie Hillend asked: “How were you feeling?”

Sobbing, she replied: “Terrified.”

She told the jury Sheikhi “stuck his hand up my skirt and under my dress”.

“I was just shouting at him to stop, and I was crying.”

She said the man did not stop, but she managed to push his shoulder to get away and ran barefoot to her friend’s house on the other side of the park.

When she got to the house and woke him up by “pounding” on the door, it turned out that her friend, aged 19, had lost his keys and he could not open it.

The woman said she was “hysterical”, so her friend held her hand through the letterbox.

She gave her friend her mother’s number, and the friend phoned her mum, who set off to get her – a ten-minute journey.

She said Sheikhi was still standing nearby, watching her.

Eventually, she walked to the end of her friend’s driveway and sat on the pavement to wait.

Sheikhi sat down next to her and again put his own socks and shoes on her.

She said: “I kept taking them off because I thought that was actually disgusting, and I think he put them on me twice.

“I kept shouting at him and crying.”

She said she had repeatedly told Sheikhi to leave her.

She said Sheikhi, through a translation app, kept saying something about “going back to his” then her mother arrived.

The woman said when that happened, “I’ve never seen anyone move so fast. He [Sheikhi] literally sprinted back towards the park”.

The next day, she was told that CID were looking for her.

A photograph taken by police of bruising, which the woman said was caused when her alleged attacker spun her round, was shown to the jury.

The woman added that her feet were left sore from walking on rocky ground.

Paul Keenan, advocate, defending, told the woman that Sheikhi did not accept that anything sexual had happened and did not accept that he had forcibly removed her shoes.

Mr Keenan said: “His intention was simply to make sure you got home safely.

“There was no sexual touching of your body over or under your clothing at any point.”

The woman denied this and said there was.

Jurors were shown a Ring doorbell video of the woman begging for her shoes back.

Sobbing, she tells Sheikhi loudly: “I want my shoes. Please give me my shoes. I want my shoes. Please stop touching me.”

Earlier, the court heard that in the early hours of the same morning, Sheikhi approached the 22-year-old woman on Kerse Lane, as she was walking back from another nightclub.

The woman said Sheikhi said “Arabic”, signalling that he spoke a different language, and told her he was staying at the Cladhan.

The woman told the jury: “It’s a hotel that is used for asylum seekers. There’s a lot of stigma about that hotel.

“I told him, ‘I’ve got nothing wrong with yous being here’.

“I was scared, I wanted to say something nice so nothing would happen.

“At this point, he leaned in and hugged me. He kissed my left cheek, the right cheek and the lips. It was all very fast.”

She said, Sheikhi then put his hand under her clothing.

She said: “I jumped back and said ‘No’.

“He got under my skirt and grabbed my bum cheek.

“I had tights on, luckily, so he couldn’t get into anything.”

Asked: “How did you feel?, The woman replied: “Really scared, a bit like violated.

The trial, before Sheriff Keith O’Mahony and a jury, continues and is expected to last until Friday.