A teenage girl has denied exaggerating the amount of violence she allegedly suffered at the hands of a 42-year-old bus driver.

The youngster, who cannot be named for legal reasons, claims she was attacked by Alan Higgins after he gave her a lift in his car when she missed a bus.

Higgins, of Oakworth Road, Keighley, is said to have taken a short cut down an isolated moorland road last January before threatening the 13-year-old with a screwdriver.

When she refused to take off her jeans, Higgins allegedly told her he was going to kill her and grabbed her round the throat. The girl, now 14, eventually escaped form his Fiat car after a prolonged struggle and today she rejected suggestions from Higgins' barrister that she was exaggerating what had happened to her.

"This seems to be the situation then: you were thumped and slapped about the head and face a very great deal weren't you?" asked Roger Keen QC at Bradford Crown Court.

"Yes," replied the girl.

"The thumping and slapping was going on all the time from when he first stopped in that lane, that's right isn't it?" asked Mr Keen. "Yes," the girl answered.

She confirmed that Higgins was much bigger and stronger than her and that he could have done anything with her if he had wanted.

Higgins has admitted kidnapping the youngster, but denied attempted murder, an alternative charge of attempting to strangle her and indecent assault.

The girl, now 14, broke down in tears as she gave her account of the alleged incident to detectives. A video tape of the interview was shown to the jury yesterday.

She said Higgins had first spoken to her as he passed her in his bus in East Morton. He later saw her in Keighley where he offered her a lift to the Great Northern pub in Halifax Road where she was due to meet her sister.

But the court heard he drove to a lane by Bracken Bank where he threatened her with a screwdriver, punched, slapped and bit her, leaving permanent scars.

"He was hitting me across the head with his fist and pulling my hair. He kept calling me a bitch and saying I deserved it. It felt like I wasn't really there. I said 'My mum is dying and I want to see her again'. But he said, 'You are not going to see anyone again'."

The teenager said during the struggle she had accidentally sounded the horn. A car pulled past in the lane and she was pulled out of view by her hair as Higgins drove away on to Halifax Road where he pulled into a lay-by.

"I told him I had asthma and pretended I was having an attack. He said he didn't care and that he was still going to kill me." She added: "I punched him in the side of the face. He said 'You have made a big mistake'."

The court heard the teenager managed to get free from a headlock and ran into the road by the Flappit pub where she summoned help and Higgins was later arrested.

The trial continues.

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