An SNP party worker has described how Alex Salmond pretended to be a zombie before sexually assaulting her while they were working together alone late at night in his official residence.

The woman told the High Court in Edinburgh the former First Minister had asked her out of the blue if she had seen “that zombie movie” before standing with outstretched arms and taking a couple of “clumsy steps” towards her.

She said he had then put his hands on her shoulders and leaned in to kiss her first on one cheek, then on the other and then attempted to kiss her on the lips.

Former First Minister Alex Salmond leaving Edinburgh High Court on day three of his trial.

Mr Salmond denies sexually assaulting the worker, known as Woman J, at Bute House the week before the independence referendum in 2014.

He also denies 13 other sex charges involving ten women between 2008 and 2014.

Woman J said she had been with Mr Salmond at Bute House shortly after a major news story broke.

She described how Mr Salmond had initially been “very angry” and later had been pacing up and down in the private sitting room as he spoke to a government official on the phone.

But Woman J said he then became more relaxed. She said he had got out two tumblers and offered her a drink and she said yes, although she did not want one.

She said: “I think he asked me as he was pouring.”

She said she was relieved the First Minister’s mood had changed. “But I was still very much on edge.”

She said Mr Salmond had been “chatty” and talked to her about some of the artwork on the walls of Bute House.

She said they were alone in the building apart from a security guard at the front door.

She had gone to the toilet and when she returned Mr Salmond was lying on the sitting room floor with papers in front of him. “He didn’t look up, he just said ‘Come here and work on this’.”

She said he had gestured for her to lie down on the floor next to him and she did so. “I didn’t want to anger him,” she said. They went through the document and as they neared the end, she said, Mr Salmond asked about “that zombie movie”.

Woman J said: “ I didn’t know what he was talking about. He stood up, put his arms out straight and for a second or two did an impression of a zombie walking towards me.

“He put his hands on my shoulders and leaned in to kiss me on my cheek, then moved me out of the way to kiss my other cheek and moved me again to kiss me on the lips.

“I raised my arms to block the connection with my shoulders. I took a couple of steps back. He turned around, picked up [the document] and acted like nothing had happened.”

Alex Prentice QC, prosecuting, asked how she felt. She said: “I was still trying to process what had happened. I remember thinking that I was glad that his reaction wasn’t angry.”

Woman J said Mr Salmond had gone into his study adjoining the sitting room and had called her to go in to work on the document.

She said she had gone in and said something about it being cold. “I was trying to make chit chat. He said ‘Well you shouldn’t have bare legs’ or something to that effect.”

She said she had pointed out she was wearing tights. “He said ‘Oh yes’ and put his hand on my leg, just above the knee. I froze. I felt quite intimidated.”

She said Mr Salmond had also touched her nose.

Asked how she felt about him touching her nose, she said: “Freaked out.”

Asked what Mr Salmond had said, she replied: “I was thinking more about how physically close he was to me than what he was saying.”

She said soon after she began working on the document as Mr Salmond had asked, he had said he was going to bed. She continued working and left Bute House around 2am.

Asked how she felt the next morning, she said: “Like I had had an awful nightmare.”

Cross-examining, Shelagh McCall QC, for Mr Salmond, suggested the former First Minister was “a touchy feely person, quite tactile”. “That’s just the way he was.”

She said the court might hear that he often lay on his front on the floor to read through documents. And she said Mr Salmond said the zombie incident never happened.

Ms McCall said Woman J had previously said she did not believe she had been the victim of anything. Woman J said she had blamed herself to start with. “At that time that’s what I said. I was really annoyed with myself.”

The court also heard a former civil servant claim Mr Salmond grabbed her bottom as they had their picture taken at an event in November 2014.

She said she had been reluctant to be in a photograph because of her neutral role as a civil servant but the former First Minister had insisted.

The woman, known as Woman K, said: “If you were going to have your photograph taken with someone you might put your arm around their shoulder or across their back, but as this was happening the

First Minister reached down and grabbed hold of my backside.”

Mr Prentice asked what her reaction was. She said: “Shock, disbelief, it was quite surreal.”

She said she had tried not to show any reaction but the court was shown a series of photographs of her and Mr Salmond taken in quick succession and she said in later ones she looked “shocked and embarrassed - almost a look forward of disbelief at what had happened”.

She said she did not want to make a scene while the photo was being taken.

She added: “I think my heart stopped, my adrenaline started pumping a bit.

“It made me just mortified. I just wanted to do my job, I wanted to be proud of myself coming in and doing my job and it felt like I was being demeaned, that it was unprofessional, that there was nothing I could do about it.”

She told the court it was not an accident but “very deliberate”. Mr Salmond had grabbed her “quite forcefully”.

She said the next morning she had still felt shocked and distressed. But she said: “I didn’t really have time to stop and think about it. I had work to do”

She said she had later told a senior colleague about the incident to make sure he was aware of it. But she had not considered taking it any further.

Gordon Jackson QC, for Mr Salmond, said Woman K had acknowledged she did not believe there was a sexual element the former First Minister’s behaviour, that it was about power.

She said that had been her interpretation. “I can’t speak to the motivation. I think he grabbed my backside because he could.”

The trial continues.

Alex Salmond trial: Ex-first minister ‘pretended to be a zombie’ before alleged sex assault