A FOOTBALLER has been cleared of sexually assaulting a woman who he kissed behind his partner's back.

Daly McSorley, 23, wept as he was found not proven following a trial at the High Court in Glasgow.

The former Stirling Albion player had been accused of attacking the young mum in the city's Merchant City in June last year.

A jury heard how McSorley, from Hamilton, had started chatting to the woman in the street after she had been refused entry to a nearby nightclub.

The footballer said he found the 25-year-old attractive.

They soon began kissing despite McSorley being in a relationship.

The woman later needed the toilet and the pair headed downstairs to a basement area in the city's Brunswick Street.

It was there McSorley said they again kissed passionately. He then recalled opening his jeans and that the woman seemed fine.

But, McSorley told the trial the woman suddenly pushed him away adding: "I did not know she was going to react like that."

He said he remembered her yelling and making a mad sound while throwing her arms around.

McSorley told how he then walked off as the woman was acting like a maniac.

The jury heard claims it was in the basement that McSorley sexually assaulted the woman.

His lawyer Louise Arrol asked: "Did you do anything against her will?"

McSorley: "No."

McSorley said it was the next day he read a news report on a woman being sexually assaulted in the Merchant City.

He then told his father how he had been in a situation with a girl before eventually handing himself into police.

McSorley had originally been charged with rape before prosecutors reduced the allegation during the trial.

Read: Footballer charged over sex attack in Merchant City

Read: Man to stand trial accused of raping a woman in the Merchant City