Clifford ‘told to take virginity’

MAX CLIFFORD told one of his alleged victims that actress Julie Christie said he should take her virginity, a court heard yesterday.

The PR guru is accused of repeatedly abusing the woman in his car in 1977 when she was aged 15.

The woman told jurors at Southwark Crown Court that Clifford also suggested he had a sexual relationship with Christie.

She said: “He asked me which actors I liked. I said Julie Christie. He said that he was her agent and he said he talked regularly to her and mentioned her on several occasions.

“I remember him saying to me he had spoken to Julie Christie and — because this had happened to her as well, by that presumably he meant the abuse that he was doing to me — she said he should take my virginity because it would be my first and then I would fall in love with him and be 100% loyal.”

The woman broke down in tears in the witness box as she was accused of being “obsessed” about Clifford.

Richard Horwell QC, defending, questioned her about research she had done online.

He asked: “During the period in which you were having counselling, did you become almost obsessed with Mr Clifford?”

She replied: “I was very frightened. I was worried he would find out about me.”

The woman said she met Clifford in 1977 while on holiday with her family in Spain and he impressed her parents with claims he could find her modelling work.

Clifford, 70, from Surrey, is accused of 11 counts of indecent assault against seven women and girls.

He denies all the charges.

Picture: PA. Max Clifford.