Girl thought PR guru was going to kill her

A TEENAGE girl thought former celebrity publicist Max Clifford was going to kill her when he forced her to perform a sex act on him, a court has been told.

Clifford, 73, allegedly locked the 17-year-old in his London office and forced her to engage in a sexual act with him.

He said “it’s only a bit of fun” after exposing himself and waving his genitalia in her face, a jury at Southwark Crown Court in London was told.

The alleged victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said she had no experience and was scared of Clifford.

“He unzipped his trousers and came towards me. He said: ‘Let’s have some fun’ or something along those lines, ‘Let’s have a bit of fun’,” she said.

“He was right next to me . . . he was completely blocking the way [out]. I said: ‘I don’t want to’.

“It felt like it was going on for ages . . . I said several times: ‘I really don’t want to do this and really don’t want to miss my train’.

“I actually thought he was going to kill me. I had no experience and really didn’t know what was going to happen next.”

She said he also made smutty jokes about her with late comedian and television host Lennie Bennett.

“They were like schoolboys,” she told the jury. “It was quite smutty . . . he would say things like, ‘we will get you to take your top off by the end of the day’.

“It was probably banter for them, but it wasn’t for me.”

Clifford denies assaulting the girl at his Mayfair offices in New Bond Street between October 1981 and May 1982.

The alleged encounter ended when a delivery person knocked on the door.

The woman said she did not tell anyone about what had happened because she was ashamed.

“I didn’t think I would be believed or that anyone would do anything. He was so powerful . . . I’m nobody.”

The woman, now married with two children, said Clifford asked her what she wore when she went out at the weekend and told her to wear a skirt to his office.

“If my skirt had ridden up a bit I would try to pull it down and he would say, ‘leave it there, I like that’, and it would make me feel really uncomfortable,” she said. – The Telegraph