A WOMAN was allegedly raped on a country lane by two men after they shared a taxi home from a nightclub, a court heard.

The 34-year-old said she was attacked in the early hours of June 10 last year after she travelled from Rawtenstall to Bacup in search of cocaine.

Garry Carl Love, 25, of Market Street in Britannia, near Bacup, and Andrew Brendan Walsh, 25, of The Ferns, Bacup, each deny one count of rape.

The alleged victim told police in an interview recorded the next morning that the men had led her up Old Lane, Britannia, before raping her.

The woman also told police she had left Vogue nightclub in Rawtenstall earlier the same night to have consensual sex at a graveyard with another man.

In the video interview, shown to members of the jury at Burnley Crown Court yesterday, she described the moments leading up to the alleged rapes.

She said: “We walked up a pebbled lane. I didn’t know where it went to. I had never been there.

“I was asking: ‘How far is it, I don’t see any houses about?”

The woman had earlier been drinking with friends and family at the Queen’s Arms pub and Vogue nightclub in Rawtenstall. She later got into a taxi with Love and Walsh, who she did not know, in Bacup Road, Rawtenstall, about 3.30am after got into conversation outside the Queen’s Arms.

A third man joined the taxi, although the woman said she ‘didn’t know where he came from’, and he got out soon after.

After the alleged rape, the woman said she went back to Rochdale Road and flagged down the first vehicle she could see, a taxi, which took her to Waterfoot police station.

(Proceeding)