A WOMAN described how she tried to commit suicide to get away from nightly sexual assaults in a Worcestershire children's home 25 years ago.

She insisted that Brian Gillam, the principal of The Uplands at Blackwell, near Bromsgrove, often came to her friend's dormitory bed for kisses and cuddles.

She also alleged that on one occasion she heard the bedclothes rustling and saw Gillam inside the bed.

The woman, aged 41, took a bottle of paracetemol tablets a few days later in 1977 and had to be rushed to hospital.

She told Worcester Crown Court: "I just wanted to sleep. I wanted not to hear them speaking and kissing."

The witness claimed Gillam attacked her after she questioned his behaviour.

Gillam, aged 62, whose address cannot be disclosed on the order of the trial judge, denies five counts of rape, seven of indecent assault and one of indecency with a child at the home between 1974 and 1983.

The prosecution alleges he abused his position as principal to use girls in his care for his own sexual gratification.

The witness, from Birmingham, went to The Uplands in 1976, after she became involved in crime.

After her suicide bid, she came round to find Gillam shaking her and quizzing her over the number of tablets she had taken.

James Burbidge QC, defending, described Gillam as a jovial man and a father figure to many of the children, some of whom would sit on his knee to be comforted.

The trial continues.