Sally Anne trial hears of attack

The woman, who is now in her 60s, said: "I definitely thought he was going to rape me. He told me not to scream or else he would kill me."

She re-lived her half-hour ordeal from 20 years ago in the witness box at the Old Bailey where chef Mark Dixie is being tried for Sally Anne's murder.

Dixie, 37, denies stabbing the 18-year-old seven times as she returned home to Blenheim Crescent, Croydon, in September 2005, but claims he found the body and subjected it to a sex attack.

The court has been told that in August, 1988, when Dixie was 17, he pleaded guilty to indecently assaulting and punching the Jehovah's Witness.

Giving evidence from behind a screen, the mother of three said she called at Dixie's flat in Plumstead, south London, two months earlier to see his girlfriend Sandra who had recently lost their baby.

She said she was crossing a railway bridge after finding no one in, when Dixie asked her to return to the flat in because Sandra had returned. When they got to the flat, Dixie went in and came out saying Sandra was not there, the witness said.

After refusing to go in, she said she got back into the lift but found Dixie running to get in as the doors closed. She said: "He said 'You have got to help me.' He was fumbling with his trousers. I could see he was trying to get his penis out. He said 'I need it, I need it'."

She tried to get out when the lift doors opened but he held her back and then punched her on the left side of her face.

"After he hit me and I was struggling back to my feet, he grabbed me by the throat with one of his hands. His leg was going up and down my leg. My skirt went up a bit. He was still fumbling with himself and saying 'Please, I need this'." The woman said she persuaded Dixie to leave the flats and he agreed to go to her home in her car. The trial continues.