Update:

I managed to convince a friend that he should let me try installing these same drivers on his ACER laptop to see what happened (with system backed up of course) and the drivers did not adversely affect his laptop.

Back on my laptop, I then decided to go for it and used ACER utility tools to erase C: drive and restart the ACER setup process in the hope that this would reset all drivers and I could start again with clean build...mistake! As before, the laptop (mouse and keyboard) still freeze within 20 seconds of the startup process commencing which means I can't get an O/S onto it and therefore can't even use the laptop in Safe mode anymore.

Now resigned to defeat and thinking of paying an expert to have a look. Any help/advice gratefully received...

Cheers.