A man accused of breaking into a house and raping a teenage girl at knifepoint more than two decades ago launched two stranger sex attacks the following year, a jury has been told.

Peter Baldwin grabbed a teenager in the street in Gravesend three months after he was alleged to have burgled the home in Sittingbourne and committed rape.

The second attack was on a woman in her 40s in her car in London’s Soho seven months after the first.

Baldwin was jailed for 12 years in 1991 for attempted rape, indecent assault, attempting to choke or strangle with intent to commit an offence, assault with intent to commit a serious sexual offence, assault and another serious sexual offence.

His criminal record was put before the jury of seven men and five women as admissions in the latest case.

They heard how Baldwin, now 56, pounced on the woman in Gravesend in the early hours and forced her into a garden. He hit her several times and threatened to kill her.

He held her around the neck and tried to strangle her with a lace from her hair. He forced her to perform sex acts on him.

She was screaming as he made her take off her skirt and further assaults involved a milk bottle.

Police arrived to find him with his trousers and pants around his ankles. When arrested, he claimed the woman was his girlfriend.

Baldwin was on bail when he tried to get into the second woman’s car. He grabbed her by the throat and threatened to kill her. He pushed her into the back seat and sexually assaulted her.

He was released from the sentence in October 1997.

Maidstone Crown Court has heard Baldwin was arrested in January this year after the Sittingbourne “cold case” was reviewed and police made a DNA match.

He at first gave a prepared statement saying: “I have no knowledge of, and did not take part in, the rape of (girl’s name).”

Baldwin, who was living in Hollybush Road, Gravesend, at the time of the alleged offences, now claims the girl invited him into her home and consented to sex.

Now of Camberley, Surrey, he denies aggravated burglary with intent to rape, rape, three charges of indecent assault and making threats to kill.

The prosecution say the teenager was home alone for the night when Baldwin entered the house, armed himself with a knife from the kitchen and threatened to kill her if she did not do as he said.

Prosecutor Kaly Kaul QC said the chances of the DNA match being someone other than Baldwin was one in a billion.

Giving evidence, Baldwin said he “totally and utterly went off the rails” and had a series of one-night stands after his pregnant wife was killed in a car crash in the late 80s.

He claimed he had met the Sittingbourne teenager in a bar in “Gillingham-ish” and they exchanged phone numbers.

They agreed to meet, he said. He was working as a project manager for a Sidcup company and went to a Christmas party on the day of the alleged offence.

"She was fully consenting. I informed her I was going home. I had done what I wanted to do" - Peter Baldwin

“I was given details of how to find the house,” he continued. “I didn’t know the area at all. I was told to not let the neighbours see me. I remember counting chimney pots so I knew which door to knock on.

“I took a bottle of wine with me. The door was opened by the complainant and she invited me in. The wine was poured. We moved into the front room.

“We proceeded to go to her bedroom. We had consensual sex. She was fully consenting. I informed her I was going home. I had done what I wanted to do.

“I upset her by saying: ‘I am going.’ She became quite upset and angry. I just wanted to get out of there quickly. She told me I had just used her for sex.”

Baldwin said he left the house and drove home. He did not have any contact with her again, he added.

He collapsed when police went to his home in January this year and arrested him in front of his wife. “I thought I was having a heart attack,” he said.

The trial continues.