5:25pm Thursday 16th July 2009
A WOMAN told a jury today that a man grabbed her when she was a teenager and raped her in a churchyard.
Brian Hoverd, 45, of Charterville Close, Minster Lovell, denies 11 charges of rape and 11 charges of indecent assault on three children in the 1980s and 1990s.
Oxford Crown Court today heard Hoverd grabbed the then 14-year-old off a street one night 20 years ago and raped her.
Speaking via a video link, the woman, now in her 30s, said the attack had left her afraid to go out at night.
She said: “He grabbed me from behind and dragged me behind a bush. I was trying to scream. I was kicking and punching him and doing everything possible to try and get him off me.
“He raped me. It felt like forever but probably lasted five or 10 minutes.”
Eventually she managed to escape and ran home but did not tell her family.
She said she recognised her attacker as a man she regularly saw at a bus stop and who she knew as “Piggy” Hoverd.
Her mother found out about the rape in 1997, the jury was told.
The case continues.
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