Clifford 'claim over virginity'

Max Clifford told one of his alleged victims that actress Julie Christie said he should take the girl's virginity, a court heard today.

The PR guru is accused of repeatedly abusing her in his car in 1977 when she was 15.

The woman told jurors at Southwark Crown Court that Clifford also suggested he had had a sexual relationship with Christie.

She said: "He asked me which actors I liked. I said Julie Christie.

"He said that he was her agent and he said he talked regularly to her and mentioned her on several occasions.

"I remember him saying to me he had spoken to Julie Christie and - because this had happened to her as well, by that presumably he meant the abuse that he was doing to me - she said he should take my virginity because it would be my first and then I would fall in love with him and be 100% loyal to him."

The woman broke down in tears in the witness box as she was accused of being "obsessed" about Clifford.

Richard Horwell QC, defending, questioned her about research she had carried out on the internet. He asked: "During the period in which you were having counselling, did you become almost obsessed with Mr Clifford?"

She replied: "I was very frightened and I was worried he would find out about me."

Clifford, wearing a grey suit, white shirt and grey tie, listened to her evidence using a hearing loop in the dock.

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.

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

He denies all the charges.

Under cross examination, the woman spoke about a sighting of Clifford in Raynes Park, south London, which she mentioned in an anonymous letter she sent to him.

She told the court that she stopped behind the defendant at traffic lights in around 1998.

"He had a personalised number plate and I could see the back of his head," she said.

In the letter, she wrote: "What to do? Wanting to get out of the car, confront you, let you know that I still remember, wanting everyone to know the real disgusting creature that you are."

Prosecutor Rosina Cottage QC asked the woman: "Is it true what you have told this jury?"

She replied: "Absolutely true."