The harrowing screams of a woman allegedly being raped by a minicab driver were played to a hushed courtroom yesterday.

The jury at Bradford Crown Court heard a mobile phone recording of the 19-year-old shouting: “Let me go, now”.

Her teenage friend, who made the recording, broke down in tears in the witness box when it was played.

Cab driver Mohammed Shazad, 36, of Brantdale Road, Heaton, Bradford, denies raping the woman in the back of his private hire car on November 28 last year, saying the woman had consented to sex.

The Crown says he subjected her to a degrading and humiliating ordeal before dumping her “like a piece of rubbish” in Queen’s Road, Bradford.

The woman and her friend got into Shazad’s cab at 5am after spending the night at the Mezz bar in Leeds city centre, the jury has been told.

The 19-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had downed up to ten double vodkas and two glasses of champagne.

Prosecutor Simon Phillips QC told the jury they had to decide if the sex was consensual.

The woman’s friend told the court she was dropped off at her home in Leeds by the cab driver. He was then to take the 19-year-old to her address in Bradford.

The witness told the jury she later rang the police after fearing her friend was in danger.

Over the phone, she heard the 19-year-old asking the cab driver why he was going the wrong way.

She was demanding to be let out of the car and began to scream.

The teenager said the police had vehicles out in Leeds and Bradford looking for her friend.

After she was found in Queen’s Road, the witness said her mother drove her to Bradford to see her.

She handed police officers at the scene her mobile phone.

The trial continues.