A WOMAN told a court how she was attacked and dragged off the street years earlier by a man who denies assaulting a prostitute while armed with a knife and hammer.

Michael Dodd, 25,of Parliament Road, Middlesbrough, is alleged to have punched a vice girl and touched her sexually during an attack in which he tried to pull her into undergrowth in Middlesbrough's red light district on October 5 last year.

The jury in Mr Dodd's trial at Teesside Crown Court has heard how he was sentenced to three years in a young offenders' institution after previously being convicted of the kidnap and assault in September 1999 of a 15-year-old schoolgirl in Hartlepool.

Yesterday, the now married woman described how she had left friends in the York Road area of Hartlepool to walk home when she heard footsteps behind.

She said: "I heard a gentleman shout 'howay then' and the next thing I knew I had a hand over my face and another round my waist and I was picked up and started kicking and trying to scream."

The woman said she was flung against a wall and then carried towards some derelict ground. She said that after kicking Mr Dodd in the shins, she got a look at his face, at which point he ran off. She later picked him out in an identity parade.

Giving evidence about his alleged involvement in the prostitute attack, Mr Dodd said he had drunk ten bottles of Newcastle Brown Ale before setting off from his home to catch a bus from Port Clarence to visit his parents in Hartlepool.

He said while walking in Bridge Street West, Middlesbrough, he was approached by the 29-year-old prostitute who asked if he wanted business.

After saying no, he said he was followed by the complainant and pushed her away twice, which was when she started shouting that she had been attacked.

Mr Dodd said he was then chased by two passers-by and panicked, running off through some nearby bushes onto a central reservation on the A66 where he was rugby tackled to the ground.

Christopher Attwooll, prosecuting, who likened Mr Dodd to Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe, as both were violent men, said his version of events was "ridiculous" and the injuries the prostitute received were not consistent with his account.

Mr Dodd denies kidnap, possessing an offensive weapon, assault by penetration and kidnap with intent to commit a sexual offence.

The trial continues.