Clubber fled to toilets to get away from him

An ex-Stirling Albion player put his hands up the skirt of a woman dressed as Edward Scissorhands at a Hallowe’en party.

Isaac Layne’s victim, a 20-year-old Stirling

University student, said the striker would not leave her alone at the event at Dusk nightclub in Stirling.

A court heard she had gone dressed as the Johnny Depp scissor-fingered screen icon in a short, frilly skirt.

On the club dance floor she suddenly became aware of a tall black man in an unbuttoned shirt – who turned out to be former Brechin City striker Layne – dancing “very, very close” behind her.

She said: “He came up behind me and put his hands on my waist. I was trying to get away. I moved my shoulder back to try to brush him off and put my hand up. He wouldn’t go away.

“He put his hand under my skirt on my thighs, three to four inches above my knee. “I felt his hands graze my underwear. “They were on the bikini line of my pants.

“I was shouting at him to go away and my friend was also telling him to go away but he wouldn’t. It just progressed. He was putting his hands on my legs and moving them on to my thighs.

“I wasn’t wearing tights and I could feel his hands going on to my upper thighs.”

The woman went to the toilet, where she burst into tears, and then out for a breather but after a friend calmed her down she agreed to go back on the dance floor, only for Layne to move in again.

She said: “We went back into the club to find my housemates. He came back up behind me again.

“We were dancing right in front of the DJ.

“I tried to move back with my friends but he continued trying to dance with me, again being very handsy, putting his hands on my waist.”

She added: “I was quite unnerved and scared.”

Eventually the woman’s friends spoke to bouncers and Layne was ejected from the club.

After a trial at Stirling Sheriff Court Layne, 23, of Springburn, Glasgow – formerly of Alloa – was found guilty of sexually assaulting the woman by rubbing her thighs under her skirt.

Layne did not give evidence but his lawyer Robert Smith said it had been a case of mistaken identity.

He said there had been an American Football team in the club that night, 60 per cent of them black players.

Sheriff Wyllie Robertson deferred sentence until October 25 for reports and assessment of the risk posed to women by Layne, whose previous clubs include Southend, Billericay Town and Alloa Athletic.

The player was placed on the sex offenders’ register and released on bail.

Prosecutor Gail Russell said: “It’s quite clear that there was unwanted sexual attention from the accused.”

Layne played seven times and made one substitute’s appearance while on loan at Stirling Albion from Alloa Athletic in 2016.