A WOMAN denied blackmailing a retired international footballer, saying she used threats to make him to apologise for ignoring her, a court heard.

Carolyn Pick, 36, told detectives the ex-footballer had telephone sex with her twice, but then refused to call her despite her many letters.

She said that four tapes she sent to him in 1999 threatening to ruin his personal life and career were used only as a means to force him to apologise for his behaviour, not to blackmail him.

Pick, of Washington, Wearside, denies two charges of blackmail.

During taped police interviews played to Newcastle Crown Court yesterday, she told officers: "I want him to know I'm very sorry. I'm not blackmailing him - I just wanted him to say sorry.

''He broke my heart. He was all over me telling me he wanted to sleep with me. He just devastated me.

''He has destroyed my life. I really liked him - I really loved him. I fell in love with him because he was intimate on the phone, but he didn't call back.

''I called him at work and he pretended he didn't know me. How do you expect me to feel when he treats women like prostitutes?''

Breaking down in tears she added: ''He's horrible. He's a very nasty man. I've never got over the way he treated me and I never will. He's nasty - he tells lies.''

Pick said during the interview that the ex-footballer - who cannot be named for legal reasons - had visited her flat several times.

The former player has denied ever visiting Pick.

And when pushed during interviews by detectives, she admitted that neither she nor her mother, who suffers from dementia, had seen the ex-footballer.

The trial continues.