A terrified jogger ran for her life after being held captive and raped for hours on end at knifepoint by an ex-prisoner who targeted her randomly on a Chester path, a court was told.

During the nine hour abduction, the 44-year-old jogger told how she thought of her family and friends looking for her and was terrified of dying alone with the last thing she would see being the face of her rapist and abductor.

As she was taken to more secluded parts of the path, the woman - who described the terrifying moment she was dragged into the woods by a stranger while she was out jogging with her dog on Duke's Drive, Chester - left items of clothing behind as clues for someone to find her.

During an interview played during the second day of the trial of Peter Watton, of Henley Drive, Lache, the runner - who cannot be identified for legal reasons - calmly spoke of the moment she knew she was going to die if she didn't get away.

“He was very intent on getting me down to the river,” she said, describing the final scene of her terrifying abduction in broad daylight at 3pm on June 14 last year.

“I thought he was going to whack me over the head, stab me with the knife and throw me in the river. I thought I would be found floating towards Chester. I didn't want to die that way.”

During her nine hour abduction the woman claims she was raped a total of eight times, sexually assaulted with objects, and taken to three different secluded locations by her abductor who stuffed a sock in her mouth and tied-up her hands with shoe laces.

But Watton, 37 - who has pleaded not guilty to false imprisonment, rape and assault - says he met her randomly on the pathway, she was upset about a row with her partner, they talked and had consensual sex in the woodland locations - a claim she strenuously denies.

The woman, who had a spat with her fiance before going running to clear her head, spoke of how, covered in mud, she sat with her rapist while he took drugs, comforted him and cuddled him, and tried to build a relationship so he would keep her alive in the hope that her partner would come looking for her.

He continually promised to let her go when it got dark, but he broke all his promises, she said.

He even asked her to inject him with a lethal mixture of drugs. When she refused he took powder orally, saying he wanted her to sit with him while he died and that he couldn't live with himself for what he had done to her.

While she waited with him in the mud and cold with the dog lying on her to keep her warm, she started to realise he was too alert to be overdosing and that he would never left her go.

Speaking about the row with her partner, she became emotional as she said: “We had a bit of an argument before I left (to go jogging) but I hoped he wouldn't think I was in a mood and he would realise something was wrong.

“I was hoping he would come to Duke's Drive and blow the whistle and the dog would come come running to him. Then he would know where I was and he would find me.

"I kept trying to send (my friends) thoughts. I kept trying to speak to people who had passed on who would watch over me. Lying there I thought ‘I am going to die, this is the last thing I'm going to see’.”

She told how she looked at flowers in the woodland, trying to find beautiful things to remember instead of her final thought being her attacker, and kept thinking of The Lovely Bones film as she lay in the mud and dirt with him.

The dog, which remained with her at all times, kept barking and he kept putting his hand over the dog's mouth and hers to stop her screaming.

“I kept trying to stay positive. I kept thinking that I did not think my life would end like this in the back of a wood.”

After being walked by Watton away from a hidey hole behind barbed wire fencing off the path, she described how she was taken to a field close to the water works and River Dee, where he became increasingly paranoid and it was then she realised he was going to kill her.

“He asked me to go into the water works. I thought if I go in there I'm a goner. I just got that feeling,” she said, describing how his attitude changed as they got nearer the river and he started shoving her in the direction of the water.

“He kept saying how sorry he was, I kept saying I just wanted the chance to get on with my life. He said he was worried about what would happen if he let me go.

“He asked me to tell (the police) we were having an affair. The way he was changing towards me it was almost like he was changing his mindset, almost like he was preparing himself to kill me.”

She managed to get away as he raped her for the final time, pulling his trousers down around his ankles so he would trip up if he ran after her.

She told how she ran as far as she could with her dog running after her, scaling gates and running until her lungs burned towards houses on Berkley Drive in Handbridge where she told a man at the door she had been abducted and raped.

“My legs were burning, I knew if I didn't put 100% into this I was going to die,” she said.

“I went into shock (when I reached the house). The full impact of what could have happened hit me when I was inside and safe in the house. The door was locked and I was safe.

“It was the thought of dying on my own, the thought that everything could have been over so quickly.”

Watton had only been released from HMP Risley for two days for kidnapping and robbery offences in Crewe when he allegedly targeted the female runner last summer. He was on licence at the time.

Simon Christie, defending, said Watton never took drugs during the incident, which he claims lasted a maximum of an hour and a half.

Jailed for previous abduction attempt

Peter Watton is a violent criminal who had been jailed for attempting to abduct a lone female driving while pretending to be a police officer, the jury at Chester Crown Court was told.

Back in 1999 Watton, 37, was jailed for six years after attempting to abduct a lone woman when she was driving along Eardswick Lane, Crewe after absconding from HMP Sudbury and stealing a car with a fellow inmate.

But when caught three months later, he denied committing the offence, saying he wouldn't do anything ‘that sick, I'm not that type of person’.

Watton impersonated a plain clothes police officer during the attempted abduction which left the woman with bruises after he repeatedly punched in the face during the attack which saw them both fall into a muddy ditch.

She thought he would drive off with her, but he gave up after she repeadly resisted.

He was arrested more than three months after the incident after his sister, who lived in Crewe, said she had washed very muddy clothes belonging to her brother on the day of the incident when he was living with her.

The jury also heard how Watton was jailed for six years in 2009 for his part in kidnapping a man from his house on Davenport Avenue, Crewe for hours and robbing a terrified couple in their Holmes Chapel home.

He had served half of this sentence when he was released on licence from HMP Risley and had only reported to the police station four hours before he allegedly targeted the woman he is accused of raping and holding captive for nine hours.