On the second day of the trial of Keith Burnside (37), of Rosemount Gardens, who denies raping the complainant when she was a 15-year-old schoolgirl, the witness said she had blocked out the alleged incident for eight years before she reported it to police.

She told the jury at Derry Crown Court that, in February 2000, the defendant, who she knew, pulled up alongside her in his car as she was walking to her home in the Shantallow area of the city.

She said the defendant offered her a lift home but the car did a U-turn and he drove her to a remote area at Sandbank Cottages where he stopped the vehicle.

She told the jury: "I heard the sound of the central locking system and I felt so scared. I said to him: 'I have to go home', but he said we could sit and chat for a few minutes. He leaned over and kissed me on the lips and moved his body over to my side of the car. He was on top of me. I tried to push him off but I was unable to do that because he was too heavy. I said, 'please get off me, I want to go home.' I was terrified.

"He started to go open his trousers with his right hand with his body weight on me. He then pulled my trousers and underwear down to my ankles. I kept repeatedly trying to get him off me, asking him to stop. I wanted to go home."

The witness alleged the defendant then raped her. "I tried even harder to get him off me. I told him, 'please, please, take me home, please stop'."

The complainant said the alleged incident felt like a "lifetime" and her body felt "paralysed."

"I did not tell anyone," she added. "I wanted to forget about it. I blamed myself for getting into the car."

The witness said she next saw the defendant at Shipquay Street in June 2006. She again saw him in July 2007 when he smirked in her direction, she alleged.

"I decided to go then to the police," she said. "For many years, I'd blocked it out. At that time, when I saw him, everything came flooding back to me. I was angry, upset and annoyed - so many different emotions."

She said she made her formal complaint to the police the following day on July 17, 2007. The trial continues.