Man who killed schoolgirl in 1972 'violently raped woman weeks earlier'

A woman has described how she thought she was going to die when she was allegedly abducted and violently raped by man just weeks before he raped and killed a schoolgirl 46 years ago.

A jury at Leeds Crown Court heard how Peter Pickering, now 80, has been held under a hospital order ever since he admitted the manslaughter by diminished responsibility of 14-year-old Shirley Boldy in 1972.

Shirley was bundled into a van by Pickering as she was returning to Wombwell High School, near Barnsley, and driven to a secluded area where she was raped, strangled and then stabbed to death.

Pickering has gone on trial accused of abducting, handcuffing and raping an 18-year-old woman about three or four weeks before the attack on Shirley.

Speaking from behind a screen the woman, who is now in her 60s, told the jury how Pickering burned her breasts with a cigarette after raping her and then told her: "I suppose I'm going to have to kill you now."

She described how Pickering picked her up in his van as she was on a four-mile walk to work as a waitress from her home in the Stocksbridge area of Sheffield.

The woman said she was handcuffed and violently attacked in the back of the van by the man, who said he was called Peter.

She told the jury her trauma continued after the rape.

"He burned me on my breasts," she said.

"It seemed like forever. About a dozen times. It was very, very painful."

The woman said: "I was stunned into silence. I just thought I was going to die."

She said: "When he'd finished he said 'I suppose I'm going to have to kill you now'.

"I had no doubt in my mind that that was what he intended."

But she said she decided she "was not going down without a fight".

The woman said she never told anyone about the attack.

Pickering, who appeared by video-link from Swindon Crown Court, denies rape and false imprisonment.