Man cleared of gun dance claims

The trail was held before a jury at Stirling Sheriff Court

A man accused of pointing an imitation gun at two schoolgirls and ordering them to dance has been cleared by a jury after a trial in Stirling.

William Officer, of Groomsport, County Down, Northern Ireland, was found not guilty of assaulting the girls in the incident in Stirling in March.

Two further charges of threatening to shoot the girls and threatening violence were found to be not proven.

The verdict was reached after a three-day trial at Stirling Sheriff Court.

During the case, the jury heard it alleged that Mr Officer had been waving the gun around his former girlfriend's home in Stirling "like American rapper 50 Cent".

However, the jury of eight women and seven men unanimously agreed to clear Mr Officer, who was told by Sheriff Andrew Cubie: "You have been acquitted of all charges. You are free to go."

Outside the court, Mr Officer said: "It's been a nightmare - a long dark road - but the truth came out in the end."

Earlier, solicitor-advocate George Pollock, defending, told the jury that the girls' story of being made to dance at gunpoint had "a strong smell of manufacture" surrounding it.

The incident was alleged to have occurred at the home of Kalene Thomson in Stirling's Middlemuir Road.