A WOMAN has alleged that a stranger she met on a night out in Oxford pushed her against a wall and ‘strangled’ her during an attempted rape.

Jurors at Oxford Crown Court heard yesterday how the woman said she ‘thought she was going to die’ during the ordeal.

Khaled Meridja, 28, of Brampton Road, Oxford, denies one count of attempted rape, one of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and two of sexual assault.

As his trial got under way yesterday, prosecutor Sally Hobson told jurors the attack on the woman – who cannot be named for legal reasons – began with a night out.

Read also: Man charged with murder of PC Andrew Harper denies all involvement

She said the alleged victim was out in Oxford with a friend on the night of October 21 last year.

The pair first went to Euro Bar before moving on to JT’s Cocktail Bar & Club, she said.

It was not long after this, jurors were told, in the early hours of the following morning that they met Meridja, neither having met him before.

Prosecutors said that they then all went back to Meridja’s home which is where the alleged assaults and attempted rape is said to have taken place.

Jurors saw a recorded police interview with the alleged victim who described what she claims happened to her while upstairs in the house.

She said: “He came upstairs and then he was trying to do stuff to me and I was [saying] ‘what the hell are you doing’ and I was trying to look for my phone.

Read also: Inquest into death of St Birinus schoolboy Harry Storey, 13

“He was grabbing hold of my breasts and I [said] ‘what the hell are you doing get off me’ and then he pushed me up against the wall.

“Then he was strangling me so much I could not breathe. He was just strangling me and I didn’t know what to do.”

She said that she tried to fight him off and during the incident he sexually touched her and tried to pull down her trousers.

Describing how she felt she said: “I just thought I was going to die.”

The court also heard that the woman later fled the house before catching a bus to the city centre, where she phoned police.

Asked how much she had had to drink that night, on a scale of one – ‘stone cold sober’, to 10 – ‘shedded’ in the words of the officer, she answered six or seven.

Meridja denies all the charges against him and the trial - expected to last four days - continues.