Two Bulgarian siblings have been convicted of assaulting a Scottish schoolgirl and her sister in an incident which went viral and sparked a global response.

Ilia Belov was found guilty of instigating the fracas by telling a 12-year-old ‘I’ll show you how to have good time’ and later assaulting her while his sister, Nadjedzha Belova, 20, admitted attacking the girl’s older sibling.

The 22-year-old filmed the child after she pulled out an axe and a knife and brandished the weapons at him and Belova in the Lochee area of Dundee on August 23 last year.

He claimed he’d been acting in self-defence, but that was rejected by a sheriff. His sister admitted assaulting a 13-year-old by repeatedly seizing and pulling her hair, dragging her to the ground and punching her on the head.

Factory worker Belov, from the city, was found guilty of causing fear or alarm by uttering sexual remarks to a 12-year-old girl, two 13-year-olds and a girl of 14, as well as approaching and following them.

He was also found guilty of assaulting the youngest girl, now 13, by seizing her on the body and pushing her to the ground.

Belov’s footage of the girl waving the weapons in broad daylight went viral and prompted reaction online from billionaire X-tycoon Elon Musk and far-fight activist Tommy Robinson.

It caused tensions in the area with Police Scotland warning about ‘misinformation’ being circulated around the case. But outside Dundee Sheriff Court, the girls’ mother said she felt the children had been vindicated for telling the truth while Belov’s lies against them had been exposed.

She said: ‘They were slandered. They were telling the truth. There is no excusing her for what she had on her. We can’t defend that.’

Sheriff Tim Niven-Smith said he did not believe Belov’s evidence and called it ‘revisionist and self-serving’ as he deferred sentence on the siblings for background reports until August. He added: ‘I am entirely satisfied that the trigger for all this were the comments you made. I am entirely satisfied... that you assaulted [her].’

The sheriff will consider whether to add Belov to the sex offenders register at sentencing.

Belov claimed that the incident had been sparked when he walked past the girls and one of them called him ‘a f****** migrant’. He said he turned round to ask the girl – who turned out to be armed – why she felt the need to ‘disrespect’ him.

Belov said he ‘felt in danger’ claiming he had seen the knife under the girl’s T-shirt and phoned his sister. He added: ‘After my sister grabbed one of the girls, the other one with the weapons tried to get closer.’

The youngster, aged 12 at the time, admitted pulling a blade and an axe from her waistband during the filmed confrontation.

She said she produced them after Belov made sexual remarks towards her and said: ‘He kept saying “come here sexy, I’ll show you how to have a good time”. I was angry. I basically turned around and shouted at him.’

After giving her evidence via video-link, the schoolgirl was given a lecture about the carrying of knives by Sheriff Niven-Smith.

He told her: ‘You carry a weapon and get into a barney and you might stab and kill someone and spend a large proportion of the rest of your life in prison.’

The girl was referred to the Children’s Reporter.