A STALKER in a pick-up truck snatched a teenage girl off the street and raped her in his home, a court was told yesterday.

Steven Williamson, 21, was under a restraining order to keep away from the 19-year-old, imposed by South Durham magistrates a week earlier.

The girl told Teesside Crown Court she was walking from work to a bus stop when he forced her into his Toyota pick-up.

She tried to escape, but he held her in a headlock and grabbed her mobile phone to check who she had been contacting.

She said he then dragged her into his house in Startforth, near Barnard Castle, County Durham, and upstairs to his bedroom.

She said she was frightened and wanted to go home, so she promised to start a relationship with him the next day.

Mr Williamson then forced her on to his bed, removed her clothes and raped her, she told the court.

He drove her home, where she told her mother what he had done. The girl did not immediately tell police about the rape allegation, and Williamson was initially arrested for breaking the restraining order.

Over the next few months, he repeatedly texted and phoned her mobile, even after police gave her a device to record the calls, magistrates were told.

When he was arrested on suspicion of rape, he said she had been a willing partner to sex and had told him that she wanted to move in with him.

The girl told the court that when they arrived at Williamson's house, she saw a cup filled with Paracetamol powder and the broken capsules beside it. He said he was going to kill himself.

Deborah Sherwin, prosecuting, said: "Because of what happened in the past she was terrified of him."

Mr Williamson, of Bowes Road, Startforth, denies kidnap and rape on October 25 last year, and three breaches of the restraining order between October 17 last year and March this year.

The case continues.