Clifford’s alleged abuse victim tells court she contemplated suicide

The alleged victim said the PR guru repeatedly abused her in his car when she was 15.

She told the trial that Clifford had told her she could be the next Jodie Foster.

The woman, who gave evidence from behind a screen to protect her identity, said she contemplated suicide after the defendant claimed a photographer had taken a picture of her giving him oral sex.

Clifford, 70, from Hersham in Surrey, is accused of a total of 11 counts of indecent assault against seven women and girls.

He denies all the charges.

The woman said she met 
Clifford in 1977 while on holiday with her family in Torremolinos, Spain. She claims he impressed her parents and told them he could find her modelling work.

Shortly after she got back to the UK, she told the court she went to his office for a meeting.

The woman said that, as the meeting progressed, Clifford asked her to take her shirt off and then her bra, which she was reluctant to do.

After believing she “couldn’t get out of this situation”, she did take her bra off, the court heard. She said Clifford then made a derogatory comment and said she “wouldn’t be able to do topless modelling”.

She also claimed Clifford would drive round to her house in south London, talk to her parents and then take her out in his yellow Jaguar to abuse 
her. She explained that before the alleged indecent assaults, Clifford said he needed to “trust” her.

“He had to know me so well that whatever he asked me to do I would do it, and he would know I would do it, like he had to get inside my head,” she said.

“He had to know me that well. That was always the precursor to the abuse.”

The women told the court 
that she did not tell anyone when Clifford was abusing her for fear of being “disowned” by her family.

In cross-examination, Richard Horwell QC, defending, put it to her: “If you went to that office you would have seen him for no more than 15 minutes, 30 minutes at the most.”

He went on: “I suggest that, if you went to his office, that would have been the first and the last time that you ever saw him.”

She replied: “Not true. I wish it had been the truth.”

The case continues.