IT had been an ordinary day. Claire was making her way home with her partner after enjoying an evening with friends in the Masons pub, in Shildon.

The only thought in her mind was tucking into a meal when she arrived home.

Minutes into the journey, her boyfriend of seven years decided to return for a few more drinks.

After all, the couple rarely went out because they spent most of their time caring for their sick son.

It is a decision he now bitterly regrets, because the events of that evening changed both their lives forever.

The route home was one Claire had walked many times and the couple could never have predicted what happened next.

As the mother-of-one walked along Redworth Road she was grabbed, beaten and raped by a stranger who had yet to reach adulthood.

A slight woman, weighing little over six stone, Claire did not stand a chance against her more powerful attacker.

The horrifying ordeal she suffered that night still leaves scars that will take a long time to heal.

Crying, she said: "He jumped out from behind the bus shelter. At first I thought he wanted money.

"He just grabbed me from behind and said 'You come up here'. He was kicking me, then he started punching me with his fists in my face.

"I was absolutely petrified.

"He told me he was going to kill me. He was hitting me all the time.

"It was my worst nightmare. You do not think anything like that is going to happen where you live."

Hudson, then aged only 16, subjected her to a horrific rape and a beating that left her with appalling injuries.

"I was pleading with him. I told him, 'please don't kill me. I have got a little boy, let me see my little boy", she recalls.

"He just stood up, checked his pockets and left. He told me to stay there. I believe if he had had a knife he would have killed me."

Beaten, bleeding and semi-naked, she ran to a nearby house where she took refuge while the occupants called the police.

"I would like to thank the couple for helping me, I don't know what I would have done if they had not opened the door," she said.

With officers en route, her partner returned from the pub after being contacted by his mother, to find Claire in a severely distressed state.

"I just lost it,", he said. "I was devastated as well as angry. If I had not left her, it would never happened."

Covered in blood, she was taken to Darlington Memorial Hospital where she was treated for scrapes and cuts. Her attacker had also damaged a ligature in her foot and had broken a tooth. Her face had ballooned to twice its normal size.

Her partner said. "The reason he beat her so hard was because his last victim had scratched his face and he had been caught with DNA.

"He wanted to beat her that hard so that she could do nothing to him."

His efforts were in vain. DNA evidence would play a crucial part in convicting Hudson of the attack.

The couple later discovered the 16-year-old had already sexually assaulted another woman in the area but had only received community service.

Claire is now receiving counselling and is trying to piece her life back together.

She has had to move from her home town because the scene of the attack was a daily reminder of what she suffered.

"I no longer go out alone," she says. "Hopefully, he will never get out. If he does, I really believe that one day he will kill someone."

* The name of the victim has been changed to protect her identity