Footballer Salim Kouider-Aïssa guilty of sex assault on sleeping woman
- Published
Salim Kouider-Aïssa was in the Airdrie squad for a playoff match on the same day that his victim gave evidence against him during the trial
A Scottish League One footballer has been convicted of sexually assaulting a sleeping woman.
Salim Kouider-Aïssa, 27, assaulted the 23-year-old in Kirkintilloch, East Dunbartonshire, on 31 October 2021.
Glasgow Sheriff Court heard the Airdrie forward stripped to his underwear in a bed at a friend's flat and inappropriately touched the woman.
Kouider-Aïssa, who joined the club in July 2021, was found guilty of one charge of sexual assault.
He claimed he got into the bed to "get a good sleep" and believed the woman was awake.
The victim gave evidence on Wednesday, shortly before Kouider-Aïssa was an unused substitute for Airdrie in their their promotion play-off match with Hamilton Accies.
She told jurors she met Kouider-Aïssaat, of Kirkintilloch, at a friend's flat after a night out and went to a spare bedroom at 05:00, with the footballer being told to stay in the living room.
She said: "I woke up and I could feel someone behind me, that's when I realised what he was doing."
The woman said Kouider-Aïssa intimately touched her.
She added: "I woke up really shocked, I went into bed myself and was shocked to have someone behind me.
"I was shouting 'what are you doing' and he said 'I thought you were awake, what have I done'.
"It wouldn't matter if I was as there was no consent."
She told the court she phoned the police around lunchtime.
Prosecutor Mark Allan asked how that morning made her feel in the following days and months.
The woman replied: "Horrendous, so anxious about everything, it is so horrible that someone could do that to you."
'I thought she was awake'
Giving evidence, Kouider-Aïssa said he was not able to get comfortable sleeping on the couch and went into the bed "to get a good sleep", removing his clothes as he was hot during the night.
He admitted rubbing the woman's leg, kissing her neck and touching her intimately, stating: "I had belief she was consenting by the way she was moving about the bed, moving her body to me."
Kouider-Aïssa told the court he now believed the woman was asleep because of hearing her evidence through the criminal process.
After the woman confronted him, Kouider-Aïssa told a friend he made a mistake, saying: "I thought she was awake."
Mr Allan asked: "There is one easy way to make sure she was awake isn't there?"
Kouider-Aïssa admitted he did not speak to the women to ask if she was awake.
He was escorted out of the flat and picked up by team mate Max Currie for a training session, but handed himself into police later after watching a football match with his uncle.
Kouider-Aïssa, a first offender, bowed his head after the verdict was announced.
His lawyer, Graeme Brown, will make his plea in mitigation at a sentencing hearing in June.
Kouider-Aïssa was put on the sex offenders register and granted bail by Sheriff Matthew Jackson KC.