A WOMAN has spoken of how she was forced to dig her own grave after being savagely beaten by a man accused of being a violent pimp, who got her addicted to heroin.

Jurors heard the traumatic details of the abuse the teenager allegedly faced at the hands Junior Bryan when she fell into his grip just weeks after leaving school.

The Darlington woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was allegedly raped, beaten with a hammer, strangled, forced to dig her own grave and had her head bunked into a pond several times while being kicked and punched.

She detailed the abuse she suffered during the 90s during several pre-recorded police interviews which were played to the jury at Teesside Crown Court.

The jury heard how on one occasion Bryan, known as JC, forced the then-teenager into the boot of his car before she had to dig her own grave at an isolated pond near a Darlington golf club, pictured below, after repeatedly punching and kicking her.

The Northern Echo:

“I thought that was it – I didn’t think he was going to stop,” she said. “I just thought I’m not get away from him, he kept saying ‘I’m going to kill you. You’re never going to get away because this is what happens’.”

The alleged victim told police officers how Bryan had taken her to the same spot before when he beat her, then forcing her to perform a sex act on him before repeatedly forcing her head under water at the pond.

She said: “He did it about nine times, every time he pulled my head up it was as if he was buzzing off it – it was like he was enjoying it.

“I was begging him to stop, I was saying I will do anything for him.”

On another occasion she recounted how Bryan dragged her into his bedsit on Corporation Road, Darlington, and launching a violent assault with a hammer.

She said he ordered her to take down her trousers before pummelling her feet, legs and shins with the weapon. When I saw that I thought I’m dead here,” she said. “I thought he was going to kill me.”

Earlier in the trial, the woman told detectives that he then subjected her to a brutal and humiliating sexual assault before threatening to kill her if she told anyone.

Fighting back tears, she said: “When he was raping me he put his hand around my neck; it got to the point where I was seeing colours and I thought I was going to die.”

Bryan, who is charged with the rape of the teenager, is facing a catalogue charges from 1993 to 2013 against eight women.

The 63-year-old is facing 32 charges, including multiple alleged rapes, false imprisonment, dealing Class A drugs and living off the earnings of prostitution.

Earlier in the trial, jurors heard that the alleged offences happened in Darlington, Middlesbrough, Leeds and London.

Another of his alleged victims was also given cannabis spiked with heroin to get addicted before being repeatedly raped in a Darlington flat.

Bryan, of Marton Road, Middlesbrough, denies all charges and the trial continues.