The former chairman of Ukip in Scotland has made his first public appearance at court to deny a string of sexual offences.

Arthur Thackeray, 55, faces 12 charges spanning eight years between October 2007 and December 2015, involving 12 different women.

The charges are said to have taken place at his home in the east end in Glasgow, an address in Colme Street, Edinburgh, and "elsewhere".

Ukip's present leader in Scotland, MEP David Coburn, has his office at the same address in Edinburgh.

The case called at Glasgow Sheriff Court on Wednesday when Thackeray denied the charges.

His lawyer Jackie White withdrew from acting due to problems with legal aid and the court appointed another lawyer for Thackeray.

The case was continued until a later date for the court to get an update on the state of preparation by the new defence lawyer.

One of the charges Thackeray faces is an alleged breach of the peace by making sexual remarks over the phone to a woman and her 14-year-old daughter and telling them he was watching a "sexually explicit video".

Another is behaving in a threatening or abusive manner "likely to cause a reasonable person to suffer fear or alarm" by repeatedly contacting a woman and "causing" her to believe he was outside her home and watching her.

The other ten charges are for allegedly "communicating indecently".

These include contacting women by telephone, "uttering sexual remarks" and "directing sexual questions" at some of them, as well as causing some to believe he was watching adult material while talking to them.

He is also accused of causing another woman to believe he was watching her and causing her to hear "sexual noises".