A migrant hotel resident who sexually assaulted two women in Falkirk in the space of little over an hour has been jailed for four years.
Muhammad Sheikhi, 23, targeted his victims after they left different nightclubs in the early hours of a Sunday morning last November.
He was later arrested in his room in the Cladhan Hotel, which has been the scene of repeated rival protests involving pro and anti-immigration demonstrators.
Sheriff Keith O’Mahony called the assaults “deliberate and predatory”.
The sheriff said that he was imposing a sentence at the upper end of his sentencing powers.
He added that he did not believe the offences were “spontaneous or accidental acts”.
The sheriff said: “They were deliberate, predatory sexual assaults committed against strangers who had every right to walk home in safety.
“You treated these women as though their autonomy, dignity, and bodily integrity counted for nothing.”
Sheikhi was also placed on the sex offenders register indefinitely and ordered not to contact or approach the victims for a period of 10 years.
Paul Keenan, defending Sheikhi, said his client is a Syrian refugee who had fled the “terror of Isis” and that he maintains his innocence.