A woman was forced down an alleyway and repeatedly raped after a stranger asked her for directions to get home, a court heard.

She had directed Mateusz Sura to a bus stop after he stopped her in the street in Maidstone in December last year.

But the 25-year-old then carried out a “petrifying” attack in the dark alleyway, before forcing her to an area by garages, where he continued to rape her, it was alleged.

Bleeding and covered in mud, the woman managed to escape after Sura was disturbed by a light in a nearby flat, Maidstone Crown Court was told.

She had been walking to shops in the early evening when Sura asked for help to get home to London.

Prosecutor Peter Forbes said she helped him to find the bus stop but felt uncomfortable because he was drinking lager, asked for cannabis and went too close to her.

Sura pulled her into the alleyway in the Wallis Avenue area and tried to kiss her before putting his hand down her trousers and sexually assaulting her.

"She felt ashamed and humiliated, and felt shooting pain" - Peter Forbes, prosecuting

“She felt scared and numb and she closed her eyes to try to black it out,” Mr Forbes told the jury.

Sura, he said, forced the women to perform a sex act on him. She managed to push him off but he became angry, forced her face up against a fence, pinned her arms and raped her twice.

Mr Forbes said Sura wanted to move somewhere more private, so he walked her to a grassy area where he pushed her to the floor, pulled down her trousers and raped her again.

“He continued for several minutes,” said Mr Forbes. “She felt ashamed and humiliated, and felt shooting pain.”

When the light came on in a flat the woman told Sura people were coming. She hauled up her trousers and fled.

Police found a torn condom wrapper and a lager can in the alleyway. They also recovered a used condom from the garage area which contained his DNA.

When arrested, Sura, who had been to the town to visit his mother, claimed the woman led him up the alleyway and initiated sex.

He was later traced through CCTV footage showing him waiting for a train to London.

Sura, of Tiverton Road, Tottenham, north London, denies five charges of rape and one of assault by penetration.

The trial continues.