A FORMER charity chief has been accused of sexually assaulting six women, including one at a Christmas party while his wife was sitting next to him.

Ian Paterson, 62, of Tarves, in Aberdeenshire, faces claims he touched office workers inappropriately while they were at work.

He is further accused of having assaulted one woman at a charity party while his wife was with him in the nightclub.

Mr Paterson was employed as the chief executive of Aberdeen ­Council of Voluntary Organisations (ACVO) when the offences­ were alleged to have happened. He left the ­organisation shortly afterwards.

Mr Paterson went on trial facing nine charges ­­- three indecent assaults and six sexual assaults - at Aberdeen Sheriff Court yesterday.

One woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said the charity boss put his hand down her top on several occasions when he visited her office.

The 28-year-old told the court: "He would often comment on clothes I wore, if he didn't like something I wore and how I wore my hair.

"He liked my hair down not up. I started wearing my hair up all the time to stop the comments and I would be careful what I put on in the morning to try to stop him touching me. I would always make sure I would have on a high cut top."

The woman told the court ­Mr Paterson put his hand in her top several times.

She said: "I was in shock. I didn't know what to say. My manager was a friend of Ian's so I didn't know who I could go and speak to about it. It was inappropriate, unacceptable."

Fiscal depute Anne MacDonald asked: "Did you say that or convey that in any way to Mr Paterson?"

She replied: "When he did it, I pulled away from him and told him to get off. He just giggled like it was nothing. He just laughed."

The woman said Mr Paterson also put his hand on her waist and rubbed himself up against her on two other occasions.

Defence lawyer David Moggach asked the woman whether she had ever socialised with his client. She told the court she had invited him to a party in 2011 and he came along to the event with his wife.

Mr Moggach asked: "By this time he had touched you but you invited him to your party. You were quite happy for him to be there?"

She replied: "Well, yes."

Mr Paterson is accused of ­assaulting seven different women at different organisations, a Tesco supermarket and Tiger Tiger nightclub in Aberdeen between July 2009 and October last year.

Another city office worker claimed Mr Paterson would visit the room where she worked and touched her co-worker inappropriately. The 34-year-old woman said her colleague would look uncomfortable and it made her feel uneasy as well.

She said: "I would see him putting his hands on the same place on her shoulders and move them down on to her chest and she would look uncomfortable."

The woman said she had once mentioned that the office where she was working at the time was hot and claimed Mr Paterson suggested that they wore bikinis.

She told the court she also witnessed an incident at a charity Christmas party held at the city's Tiger Tiger nightclub in 2010.

She said: "We were at a round table. I was sitting directly opposite Ian and his wife was on his left.

"I saw his arm going down under the table and just a bit of a wiggle. It was clear he was moving it around."

She said the woman sitting next to him then began to look uncomfortable and moved away from him. She added: "To me it looked like he had his hand on her and it did not look like she was enjoying it."

Mr Paterson denies all charges. The trial continues.