A TEENAGE rape victim has told how she was assaulted for 20 minutes after being grabbed at knifepoint by her attacker.

Speaking in police interviews shown to a jury at Maidstone Crown Court today she recalled how she was bundled from a footpath by a man as she walked home.

When the man threatened to kill her the girl, who was 14 at the time of the attack, said: "I just done what I was told, otherwise I wouldn't be here today."

Antoni Imiela, 49, of Heathside, Appledore, near Ashford, is accused of raping her in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, on October 25, 2002.

The jury today was shown 90 minutes of an interview recorded the day after the girl was attacked.

She was threatened with a penknife and warned not to scream. She tried to struggle free but was unable to, the jury heard.

The man then took her deeper in to woodland, which lined the path, and threw her to the floor.

After initially saying he would not rape her, her attacker then said: "Actually I've just decided I'm going to."

He then questioned whether her father or mother's boyfriend had ever done anything sexual to her. "Come on, someone must have done," he said.

She was forced to touch him before he ripped off her trousers and started to rape her. He then ripped off her bra using the knife and began to touch her.

Speaking in the first of three police interviews, the softly spoken girl said: "It was hurting me and I said it, but he didn't really care. He told me to lift my legs up because he couldn't really do it.

"He was trying to kiss me. Trying to put his tongue in, but I wouldn't let him. I just followed his instructions because I didn't want to die. When he finished I thought he was going to kill me."

When he finished the man told her not move or he would come back and kill her.

The girl described how the man's hand had smelt of tobacco when she had been grabbed round the face. She had seen a green bag of tobacco in his hand and had noticed him light a cigarette as he fled the scene.

She had heard the man running up behind her as she walked along the footpath and stopped to let him go by.

Dressed in black, with white trainers and short grey hair, she feared he was going to run into her.

"I think he came out of the woods because I looked behind me and there was no one there and I looked again and there was someone really close behind me," she said.

The girl described him as being slightly fat, with a big nose, about 5ft 5in or 5ft 6in tall and aged between 40 and 60.

After her ordeal she waited for several minutes before running home and raising the alarm.

Mr Imiela denies nine charges of rape, one of attempted rape, indecent assault and kidnap between November 2001 and November 2002.

His first attack is said to have been the rape of a 10-year-old girl on the Stanhope estate in Ashford.

The trial continues.