'Rapist made me pregnant'

A FORMER model told a jury that she was a victim 16 years ago of a man now standing trial accused of raping a young mother.

The woman, named at the Old Bailey as Miss N, said she became pregnant after Nicholas Edwards, 39, attacked her when she was 19 and living in a bedsit in High Wycombe.

Edwards, a welder, of Sydenham, London, denies the rape of a young mother, known as Miss D, in August 1998.

The jury was told he spoke to her in the street and then lured her to his home where he raped her twice.

Richard Benson,defending, told the jury Edwards had previously been acquitted of attacking Miss N.

They also heard he is a convicted raptist.

The prosecution has been allowed to call five other complainants who say they were attacked in a 'strikingly similar way'.

David Perry, prosecuting, said Miss N's evidence was intended to show a similar pattern to the rape of Miss D.

Miss N, now 35, said she met Edwards in April, 1984, while she was on her way to a telephone box in Roberts Road, High Wycombe.

Edwards pulled up in a gold BMW with some friends and pestered her to go out with him, but she declined.

Later that evening she used the phone box again, and Edwards drove up and she accepted his offer of a lift home. However, she said, he became 'a little too pushy with his questions'.

A few days later there was a knock on Miss N's door at 4am and, thinking it might be a friend, she opened it to find Edwards 'in a right state'.

He told her he was in trouble with the police and could not go home.

Miss N told him he could have a coffee but then had to go.

But as she sat on the edge of her bed he pushed her back and raped her.

Miss N said she had to have an abortion after being made pregnant by Edwards.

The court also heard from Miss S, a 33-year-old woman with learning difficulties, who said Edwards raped her in his parents' home in High Wycombe in February 1985, when she was 17.

Mr Benson told the court that in 1986 a jury at Reading Crown Court had convicted Edwards of raping Miss S.

The court was told Edwards had previously been acquitted of raping three other woman who gave evidence against him this week.

The trial continues.