I thought Max Clifford was going to rape me, court told

A SCHOOLGIRL feared she would be raped or murdered when Max Clifford drove her down an alley and l unged at her, a court heard yesterday.

The 14-year-old was ‘frozen in fear’ as he allegedly groped at her school uniform and breasts.

The celebrity publicist was said to have approached the girl in a fast food bar and lured her into his car.

The PR guru allegedly said she could meet her idols, US pop trio The Walker Brothers. But then he told her ‘this is what you’ve got to do’ as he threw himself on top of her, London’s Southwark Crown Court was told. The woman, now a 62- year- old mother of two and the first witness in Clifford’s trial, said she was ‘frozen in fear’ in the alleged 1966 i ndecent assault i n Morden, south London.

He denies 11 counts of indecently assaulting seven women aged 14 to 19 between 1966 and 1984.

She told the jury she used to go with friends to the Wimpy bar, where Clifford would sit on his own drinking coffee. Another witness described Clifford, then in his early-20s, as an ‘oddball’ who ‘tried to hang out’ with teenagers in the Wimpy. On this occasion, the alleged victim said she went in alone but her friends were not there and Clifford offered her a lift home. The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said she refused because she only lived ‘round the corner’. He was insistent, she said, adding: ‘I gave in. I was just a silly girl and I said yes.’ But instead of taking her home, he parked in a cul-de-sac under a bridge. She said: ‘When my seat was almost horizontal, he lunged at me and put his body on mine and he was touching me all over.’ She added: ‘I thought at the time that I was going to get raped if I did not get out of the car, I was just thinking about escaping... I did not know at that stage whether I was going to be raped or murdered.’

She managed to get free. Mr Clifford, 70, denies all charges in the trial.