A Syrian refugee accused of sexually assaulting two women in Falkirk followed one of his alleged victims for more than half an hour despite her pleading with him to leave her alone, a trial has heard.
Muhammad Sheikhi, 23, is accused of carrying out the attacks in the central belt town in the early hours of Sunday November 30 2025.
He is said to have sexually assaulted one woman with intent to rape her in Kerse Lane and Bellsmeadow skate park, close to the Hotel Cladhan where he was staying at the time.
Sheikhi is also alleged to have attacked a second woman at Kerse Lane.
On Wednesday, a trial at Stirling Sheriff Court heard one of the women encountered Sheikhi on Kerse Lane when she came out of a nightclub at about 2.30am.
Giving evidence from behind a screen, the woman told the court she tried to walk past Sheikhi but that he “put his phone in (her) face” and began following her as she walked to a friend’s house, despite her asking him “numerous times” to leave her alone.
“I told him at the beginning to stop following me, I told him walking through the street, I told him at the skate park to stop following me, at (my friend’s house),” she said.
“I told him to leave me alone numerous times.”
She added that he was using Google Translate on his phone to communicate with her, and that at one point she typed into it, “Leave me alone, go away, or I am not coming back with you, (or) something along those lines”.
The indictment alleges that, at one point during the journey, Sheikhi seized her and pinned her against a tree, before sexually assaulting her.
The court was shown CCTV footage taken at 2.40am and camera doorbell footage at 3.14am, which show the pair walking side by side, with her wearing his shoes and he in his socks.
She told the court Sheikhi had put his shoes on her feet after taking hers off her.
The indictment alleges Sheikhi had removed her shoes to prevent her leaving.
The court was shown another doorbell clip from 3.27am, showing the woman crouched on the ground pleading for him to give her her shoes back and to stop touching her.
“Please can I have my shoes back”, she can be heard repeatedly saying, her voice audibly distressed.
She can also be heard saying: “I just want to go home,” and “please stop touching me”.
In another clip from 3.44am, she can be heard saying, “Please leave me alone”.
Sheikhi’s laywer, Paul Keenan, put it to the woman his client had given the woman his shoes as one of hers was broken, and that he had just being trying to make sure she got home safely.
He also put it to her “nothing sexual of any type at any time occurred on evening in question”.
She rejected this.
The court heard by the time the woman reached her friend’s house she was “hysterical”.
Giving evidence, her friend said he was woken up by a “pounding” on his door and the woman “screaming and shouting”.
However, he said he could not open his door to let her in as he had lost his key, so instead he held her hand through the letterbox until her mother arrived 20-30 minutes later.
He said she seemed “distressed” and “worried”, and that she told him a man had been following her.
Asked whether the man was still there, he said he could see a man “standing there” across the road.
The court was also shown Snapchat messages the woman sent to her friend in the days following the incident.
In one message she wrote: “He kept trying to kiss me and touching my toys n arse he was trying to drag me over to his” – with the witness saying ‘toys’ was probably a typo and that it should have read “tits”.
In a further message she wrote: “I have bruises down my arm.”
Asked by Mr Keenan whether at any point when she was outside his house the woman mentioned an alleged sexual assault or asked him to call the police, he said no.
“Maybe she would not want to speak about something like that to me,” the witness said.
“Maybe the next day she decided that she would let me know.”
Sheikhi denies all the charges against him.
The trial, before Sheriff Keith O’Mahony and jury, continues.
