Teenager tells how she escaped bus-stop killer

A woman told a court yesterday how she struggled with a man who is accused of killing two students.

Anna-Maria Rennie ran off after kicking her attacker – but heard him calling out "whore" as she fled, the Old Bailey was told.

Miss Rennie, now 23, said the encounter – which took place when she was 17 – had changed her for ever and made her wary of people.

She told the court she was accosted near a bus stop in Twickenham, south-west London, after a late-night row with her boyfriend in October 2001.

"I was very angry, very upset. I was probably crying," she said.

She had decided to return home and had been walking along when a car pulled up behind her.

"I believe someone called out or said something," she said. "I looked back and saw a gentleman get out of the passenger side."

She said a conversation was started up and "at one point he asked me if I wanted a lift and I said no".

After speaking to the driver of the blue Ford Mondeo car, she began to go but found the first man still behind her.

She said: "He put his arm round and I screamed. He put his hand over my mouth. He picked me up from the floor and was walking towards the car, which was now parked in the lay-by with its back passenger door open.

"At this point, I was kicking and screaming as much as I could to get away. I was scared.

"Just before he got to the car, he let go and I got away into the park."

As she ran off, she heard him calling out. "He shouted something like you are a whore and other obscenities over those lines. You are whore, you are a slut. I can't remember the exact words but it was along those lines."

She ran all the way home and was still shaken when she got in. "I was still scared. I was tired, very nervous. I was crying and shaking."

Miss Rennie later picked Levi Bellfield out of an identification parade. But her confidence was so shattered that she now lived in the Spanish countryside, the court was told.

The court was told that her attacker was the same man who then killed Marsha McDonnell, 19, and Amelie Delagrange, 22.

Mr Bellfield, 39, a wheel clamper from west London, denies Miss Rennie's kidnap and false imprisonment in October 2001. He also denies murdering students Ms McDonnell and Ms Delagrange and the attempted murder of two other women.

The trial was adjourned.