A WOMAN who was allegedly sexually assaulted by Premiership footballer Titus Bramble in the back of a cab tearfully told a court how she “just kept telling him no”.

The witness said she was really scared by the Sunderland defender’s advances on her, which included twice forcing her hand onto his groin.

The pair got into a taxi together after a night out in Yarm, near Stockton, but after telling Mr Bramble she wanted to go home, he insisted they drive to his house in Wynyard, near Stockton, and began acting aggressively towards her.

“He put his hand between my legs and up my dress and I told him to stop instantly,”

she said.

Asked by Shaun Dodds, prosecuting, how Mr Bramble appeared, she said: “His jaw was going and he looked like he was on something.”

The footballer then twice forced her hand onto his groin, she claimed. “He grabbed my hand, put it on his crotch,” she said.

“I just kept telling him no.”

Instead of driving to Wynyard, taxi driver Abid Hussain, in whose cab the assault allegedly occurred, then drove Mr Bramble and the woman to Stockton police station.

Giving evidence from behind a screen, the 20-year-old witness said she locked herself in a toilet at the station and refused to leave until Mr Bramble had been led away by officers.

Asked why, she said: “I just wanted to get away from him.”

Mr Hussain, who also gave evidence, said Mr Bramble seemed a “bit drunk”. “He did not look happy,” he said.

He said Mr Bramble paid £15 towards the £20 fare he demanded to take him to the footballer’s home in Wynyard – the alleged victim paying the other £5.

Asked why instead of driving to Wynyard he took the woman to the nearest police station, Mr Hussain said she had squeezed his arm, which he thought was suspicious.

He said: “I thought she was asking for help. Something mattered. I did not want any argument or trouble in the car.”

Mr Bramble, 30, denies four charges of sexual assault on September 28 last year. He is also said to have groped another woman’s bottom in the Cross Keys nightclub, Yarm.

The trial continues.