Claire Tiltman trial: Accused carried out brutal attack on another woman years before

Former milkman Colin Ash-Smith, 46, allegedly stabbed the 16-year-old in a frenzied attack in an alleyway off London Road, Greenhithe, as she walked to a friend's house in January 1993.

In a written statement read to Inner London Crown Court today (November 13) another woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, described the moment she thought she would die at his hands, lying terrified in secluded grassland.

The victim of the attack, in December 1988, said: "At one point he took the tissues and stuffed them into my mouth.

"He kept saying shut up or I'll kill you."

Ash-Smith forced the woman to remove her clothes, ripping some of them off himself with a knife and attempted to rape her before stabbing her five times and leaving her for dead.

She said: "He stabbed me in the neck and told me he was going to kill me quickly.

"I asked him to let me live and kept crying.

"He forced me down on my front and sat on me. He strangled me, I shut my eyes and my face went tingly.

"When I moved there was a gurgling noise in my back and it felt like there was water pouring."

The victim eventually managed to survive the horrific attack by rolling down a quarry and finding help.t

The court heard a journal of "assault plans", recovered from Ash-Smith's bedroom in Ingress Park, Greenhithe, detailed savage attacks on women and rated how successful they were on a percentage scale.

The diary described an incident almost identical to the 1988 attack as "95 per cent successful."

He claimed the attack was his "masterpiece".

Ash-Smith later confessed to the stabbing of the woman and another in 1995.

His former best friend Brian Hudson told the court: "He was quite genial, obliging and would do anything to help you.

"He would drive around in his dad's BMW to this Dartford nightclub at 2am and give girls (strangers) lifts home."

He is now charged with the murder of Claire Tiltman.

The trial continues.