‘ I’m terrified... I feared I’d be raped’

■ Trump judge pick’s accuser testifies to US Senate panel I’m here because I believe it is my civic duty to tell you what happened to me while Kavanaugh & I were in high school — Christine Blasey Ford, Varsity prof

Washington, Sept. 27: University professor Christine Blasey Ford said Thursday she believed she was going to be raped or accidentally killed during an alleged assault 36 years ago by Brett Kavanaugh, Donald Trump’s embattled nominee for the Supreme Court.

“I am here today not because I want to be,” Blasey Ford told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee in a charged hearing room.

“I am terrified,” she said, her voice quavering on the verge of tears as

she recounted the details of the 1982 incident which she says took place at a party in a suburban Maryland home.

“I am here because I believe it is my civic duty to tell you what happened to me while Brett Kavanaugh and I were in

high school,” Blasey Ford said.

Mr Kavanaugh was not present as the session — which could make or break his confirmation to the nation’s highest court — got underway. He is expected to testify later in the day.

The accusation, which Mr Kavanaugh steadfastly denies, has thrust the Trump administration into the # MeToo movement’s harsh glare, and threatens to derail a conservative effort to tilt the high court to the right for years to come.

■ KAVANAUGH HAS vehemently denied the allegations

■ THE TESTIMONY — made under oath at a high- stakes hearing — is damning for Kavanaugh.

Washington. Sept. 27: Christine Blasey Ford told senators Thursday that she remains “100 per cent” certain that Brett Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump’s nominee for the US Supreme Court, was the person who sexually assaulted her at a party.

In extraordinary and at times emotional testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Blasey Ford, a psychology professor in California, said it was “absolutely not” possible that she had mistakenly identified Kavanaugh as her attacker.

Some conservative scholars have suggested Blasey Ford’s accusation was a case of mistaken identity, but Blasey Ford, 51, insisted she has a “100 per cent” level of certainty that it was Kavanaugh who assaulted her.

The testimony — made under oath at a high- stakes hearing — is damning for Kavanaugh, whose nomination is facing intense scrutiny, as two other women also have come out identifying themselves as victims of sexual misconduct by the federal judge.

Blasey Ford claims Kavanaugh tried to rape her at a party in 1982 when he was 17 and she was 15.

Asked how she could be so sure it was Kavanaugh who attacked her, Blasey Ford responded with confidence: “The same way that I’m sure that I’m talking to you right now. Just basic memory functions.” The “trauma- related experience” was seared into her brain, she said.

Kavanaugh, 53, has strenuously denied assaulting anyone and insists he is the victim of a “smear campaign.” Senior Senate Democrat Patrick Leahy was among those who questioned her and asked bluntly about her memory of the incident.