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Titus Bramble On Trial Over Sex Charges

Football Star 'Put Hand Up Woman's Dress'

Sunderland footballer Titus Bramble has gone on trial accused of sexually assaulting two women on a night out.

The jury was told Bramble, 30, denies being the man who grabbed the bottom of a police worker in the Cross Keys nightclub in Yarm, near Middlesbrough, last September.

The prosecution told the court that Bramble will say that sexual activity with a second woman in the back of a taxi on the same night was consensual.

Giving evidence from behind a screen, the first woman said she did not see who grabbed her in the dimly lit club, but a man she later identified as Bramble was standing behind her "smirking".

She told the jury she said, "Don't you grope me like that", before pointing him out to an off-duty police officer friend who told her the man played for Sunderland Football Club.

The woman said she replied: "I don't care what he does, he's not grabbing me like that."

The court heard how the woman reported the incident to police after seeing reports of Bramble's arrest for allegedly assaulting another woman later the same night.

According to the prosecution, the second woman, who knew Bramble, kissed him in an alley outside the club at around 1.30am but turned down an invitation from him to go to another club.

The jury heard how she got in a taxi with Bramble on the understanding that it would take her home before he continued elsewhere.

The woman claims Bramble touched her, forced her to touch him, and tried to kiss her in the back of the taxi against her will.

The prosecution said the taxi driver drove the pair to the police station because the woman was "very sad and scared".

Bramble denies all the charges. The trial is expected to last five days.