A YOUNG mother sobbed as she told an Old Bailey jury that she fell victim to a date rapist who is alleged to have attacked five other women in a 'strikingly similar way'.

A YOUNG mother sobbed as she told an Old Bailey jury that she fell victim to a date rapist who is alleged to have attacked five other women in a 'strikingly similar way'.

Welder Nicholas Edwards, 39, is alleged to have raped six women - two of them while he was living in High Wycombe in the 1980s - over a 14-year period but he has claimed that on each occasion the woman had consented to having sex with him.

Edwards faces a single charge of rape, which he denies, but the prosecution has been allowed to call five other complainants to show it is not just one woman's word against his.

The jury heard last week that one of the complainants claims she was raped at the age of 19 in High Wycombe in April 1984.

Edwards is then said to have raped a second girl, a 17-year-old, in High Wycombe in February 1985 after he met her at a petrol station and had offered to take her for a drive. He was alleged to have then taken her to his home where he raped her.

The court heard on Thursday that Edwards, of Wells Park Road, Sydenham, London, stands charged of raping the young mother in August 1998.

She has told the court that Edwards chatted her up in the street before asking her out for a drink and coaxing her back to his flat where he attacked her.

She told the court: 'He tried to put his hand up my skirt. I pushed his hand away. I was scared and frightened. At this stage he offered me his hand and pulled me off his bed like he was going to take me home. I was crying and trembling.'

But she claims Edwards then put his arm across her neck and pushed her on a mattress before forcing her to take her clothes off.

She said he raped her twice before allowing her to leave his house.

Edwards denies one charge of rape. The trial continues.