Max Clifford trial: PR guru had smelly breath, says 'victim'

 
Trial: Max Clifford outside Southwark Crown Court today
25 March 2014
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An extra in a James Bond film has told a court how she recalled publicist Max Clifford’s “smelly breath” as he allegedly forced himself on her after getting her to pose for him in lingerie.

The woman, who is one of seven alleged victims of indecent assault by Clifford, told Southwark Crown Court she was about 20 when Clifford suggested he become her agent after she landed a role in Octopussy in the early 1980s.

The witness said she was “very frightened” and “screamed” at Clifford to leave her alone after he “lunged” at her in his Bond Street office.

The woman, who is now aged 52, said Clifford told her he would make her famous and could get her a part in the new Charles Bronson film but needed some photographs of her in lingerie first.

She said that after posing for pictures she got dressed, and Clifford “then lunged towards me and tried to kiss me”.

The woman said she “resisted” the PR advisor but he pushed her back onto a sofa.

She went on: “He was on top of me and hands all over the place and still trying to kiss me.

“Then I got very frightened and I kicked him between the legs really hard.

“It was such a fleeting moment but it seemed like he was all over me. I just remember his smelly breath.”

She said she grabbed her belongings and ran away before calling a friend from a phone box.

She said she never saw Clifford again and did not hear anything more about the film.

During questioning by prosecutor Rosina Cottage QC, the woman said she had met Clifford at his office once before but nothing untoward had happened.

Between then and the second time she met him, she said she received a phone call from a man who called himself Terry Denton.

She said he told her he knew Clifford and she was a “very lucky girl” to have the chance to have him as her agent.

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She said the man told her: “Max Clifford thought I was really lovely and he really fancied me, and that Max Clifford was in love with me and that if I played my cards right I would become very famous.

“It was all very odd and very strange and I knew something wasn’t quite right.”

Wearing a navy blazer, white shirt and jeans, Clifford, 70, listened from the dock with the aid of a hearing loop.

Clifford, from Hersham in Surrey, is accused of 11 counts of indecent assault against seven women and girls. He denies all the charges.

The trial continues.

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