A young woman told how she feared for her life after she was allegedly raped and beaten up by a heroin addict in a terror attack in her own home.

The complainant, herself then also abusing drugs, said she had been dragged upstairs before being 'battered all over the house,' by Christopher Knowles Pagani. She told a jury how she screamed for help through the window, thought the defendant had locked her in and was petrified Pagani was going to return and kill her.

The defendant's counsel claimed the woman, whose boyfriend was then in prison, had wanted to get Pagani into bed and he had assaulted her after she dubbed him 'pathetic and useless' for 'failing to perform'. Pagani, 20, of Poplar Street, Nelson, denies rape.

Burnley Crown Court heard how the defendant pulled the alleged victim by her hair as she kicked and screamed, threw her onto a bed, pinned her hands above her head and forced sex on her. The woman claimed she was left on the floor cowering and added;"I was frightened, scared and I was scared for my life."

Cross-examined by Roger Baldwin she agreed she had been saying at the time she was pregnant but added she had thought she was. The woman said it was not true she had earlier been starting to make a play for the defendant because she fancied him.

Mr Baldwin claimed Pagani could not penetrate the woman because of the effects of heroin and she had called him usless. He suggested :"That's when he attacked you. He did assault you."

The barrister went on to suggest the woman did not tell police at first that she had been raped because she had not thought at that stage that she would say she had been raped. She told the court that was not true.

(proceeding).