A FORMER soldier told a court yesterday that the woman accusing him of attempted rape was "emotional and aggressive".

John Terence Ellison, 31, said the 23-year-old had been "all over him" in the New Market pub, in Tow Law, County Durham, before the alleged attack, on May 30 last year.

Mr Ellison, on trial at Teesside Crown Court, denies dragging the woman by her hair and arm, pinning her against a wall and stripping her semi-naked in a dark driveway, off Church Lane, Tow Law.

He said he had enjoyed a casual sexual relationship with the woman in the past.

The court heard how the couple later returned to the New Market pub after hours where the woman had started "kicking off" when the landlord refused to let her in. They then set off walking down Church Lane.

Mr Ellison said: "She wanted to turn round and go back. I grabbed hold of her and she fell on her knees."

He told the court that she ran off and he thought she may have returned to the pub to cause trouble, when he spotted her talking to a woman.

"She was trying to get into the house, saying 'he's trying to rape me'. I was quite shocked at the time. I never touched her. All I was trying to do was protect her from herself," he said.

He said she must have taken half her clothes off before reaching the house.

Earlier, the owner of the house, Marlene Moody, described how she answered an urgent knock on the door and found a semi-naked woman "very upset".

Police surgeon Dr Susan Waterworth said the woman's injuries - bruising and grazing - were consistent with her being held and falling to her knees.

The trial continues.