Falkirk asylum hotel resident on trial over sexual assaults

A Syrian refugee is on trial accused of sexually assaulting two women in Falkirk.

Muhammad Sheikhi, 23, denies attacking a 22-year-old woman under a railway bridge in Kerse Lane, Falkirk, not far from the Cladhan Hotel where he was staying.

He also denies sexually assaulting a second woman, with intent to rape her, near the same location and at a nearby skatepark.

Both incidents are said to have taken place on November 30, 2025.

The trial, which began at Stirling Sheriff Court on Tuesday, heard that earlier the day, on November 29, 2025, there had been protests at the asylum hotel.

Giving evidence from behind a screen, the 22-year-old woman said she was walking back to her father’s house from Maniqui’s nightclub in Falkirk at about two in the morning, when she heard footsteps behind her as she approached the bridge.

She said: “I sped up. The footsteps got faster as well. As I got under the bridge a man appeared right beside me.”

She said she told him he had given her a fright.

She said: “He said ‘Arabic’ – signalling that he spoke a different language.”

She said the man – “a complete stranger” – tried using Google Translate but that did not work.

She asked him if he was at the Cladhan, and he said “Yes”.

She 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 you being here’.

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

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

She said that the man was in front of her and the bridge wall was behind her.

She said she pulled away and was able to start walking out from under the bridge but he quickly caught back up with her.

She said: “He was saying ‘WhatsApp, WhatsApp’. I thought he was asking for my phone number.

“I said I didn’t give my WhatsApp out to people. He kept pushing his phone into my hands.

“Every time I gave it back, he pushed it back, so that I’d put my Snapchat username into his Snapchat.”

She took the phone because she wanted the encounter to be over.

The woman said that while she was typing into the phone, the man groped her.

Prosecutor Jamie Hillend asked: “How did you feel?”

The woman replied: “Really scared, just a bit like violated.

“He was still putting the phone back into my hand.

“He wouldn’t let me leave until he got his phone out to physically add me onto that app [Snapchat] so he could contact me I suppose.”

She said the man stood and made her click to accept him on Snapchat.

She then walked away as fast as she could, and the man shouted down the street, “I love you, I love you”.

She told the jury she walked back to her father’s house, speaking to her dad on the phone on the way, then “broke down” when she got there and contacted police.

She then received messages on Snapchat from an account with the username “Jan Omar”, which was used by Sheikhi.

One message was two emojis with love hearts for eyes.

The other said, “I love you… I’m ready to help with anything.”

The woman disagreed with a suggestion from defence advocate Paul Keenan that, according to Sheikhi, it was she who had approached him, not the other way round.

Mr Keenan said: “Mr Sheikhi’s position is that he didn’t kiss you or touch your buttocks at any point.”

The advocate said Sheikhi’s position was that the woman had tried to hug him, he moved away, and there was no sexual contact at all.

Mr Keenan asked the woman: “Did he explain he is a Syrian refugee?”

The woman replied: “No.”

The trial, before Sheriff Keith O’Mahony, continues.