AN 11-year-old girl has described the terrifying moment she says a man tried to rape her in a dark alleyway in Worcester.

The girl recounted the harrowing ordeal in a video interview played to a jury at Worcester Crown Court this morning.

Joshua Beardmore denies the attempted rape of a girl under 13 and assault by penetration following the alleged attacks in an alleyway near the Goodrest Tavern in Barker Street, Worcester on May 25 this year.

The 25-year-old of Glenthorne Avenue did not appear at his trial and the case was opened in his absence by prosecutor Anna Midgley. The girl, who had a 10pm curfew, said Beardmore had offered to walk her home and suggested they go to the Co-Op where he bought a bottle of Lucozade.

CCTV shows the girl and Beardmore in the shop at 10.10pm, 10 minutes after she was supposed to be home.

After they left the shop they entered the alleyway which she described as 'really, really dark', telling officers 'I couldn't really see anything'. The defendant said he wanted to meet a friend and she said at one stage he pretended to be on his mobile phone before he pulled her leggings and knickers down to her knees.

She said: "He kind of went around the back of me and took my underwear off.

"I said 'what are you doing?' He said 'nothing'. He obviously was doing something. I was trying to shout. The second time he slapped me and kept on hitting me.

"I said 'please stop'. He kept on hitting me. He picked me up. He was dragging me around."

She said he picked her up under her armpits and left a bruise on her upper arm and her shoes fell off. The girl described how she was crying and begging him to stop as he was 'touching her everywhere'.

She told officers he carried out a penetrative sexual assault using his finger. The girl also described him pulling down his boxer shorts and rubbing himself against her as they lay on the ground.

During the assault she said she believed 'he was trying to kill me in some way'.

"I was terrified. I did not want to run because he's a fast runner" she said.

The girl told officers he stopped and said to her: "Sorry. What have I done?"

She asked him if she could collect her belongings and she ran back in the direction of the Co-op, telling a man called Mark Fletcher who had been at the Goodrest what had happened at around 10.15pm.

The girl was described as 'shaking and crying'. Police were contacted and Beardmore was arrested.

The girl believes Beardmore may have been drunk at the time and was carrying a bottle of beer at one stage which she said he put in the bin.

Anna Midgley, prosecuting, said: "She was crying and terrified and did not know what was happening."

Miss Midgley said when police arrived to arrest Beardmore at his then address in Vigornia Avenue he 'started to become distressed and suggested he should end it all and grabbed a kitchen knife but officers were able to calm him down'.

In interview he largely answered 'no comment' to questions but did say he 'wasn't a child molester'.

Police recovered the Lucozade bottle from the alleyway with Beardmore's fingerprints on it.

He explained the mud on his tracksuit by saying he had been wearing it for three days and it had got dirty.

The trial continues.