Tweed rape claim woman's friend 'tried to get her out'

A friend of the teenage woman allegedly raped by Jack Tweed, and his estate agent friend from Essex, at his home described today how she desperately banged on the bedroom door in a bid to get her friend out.

She said there was no lock but she still could not get in to the room because someone was holding the door.

"That's when I realised that there must have been two people in there," she said. "They were not letting my friend out of the room. I just wanted to get her out of there."

Tweed, the widower of 'Big Brother' star Jade Goody, and his friend Anthony Davis, (aged 26) of Stradbroke Drive, Chigwell, both deny raping the teenager at Tweed's east London home in the early hours of September 4 last year.

The victim, who was 19 at the time, told Snaresbrook Crown Court in east London she was "horrified" and went into "complete lockdown" when Davis joined Tweed on the bed and they both raped her together.

Her friend, a 20-year-old council worker, told the jury she went to the bedroom when she noticed her friend was missing. "The first time I was like: 'Are you all right?'," she said.

"There wasn't a reply for a while, then she replied, 'Yes'. Then the time that (we) went up to get her because we wanted to go she wasn't replying to us. I started banging on the door because I wanted to go home and at that point I was starting to worry about her."

The jury of six men and six women heard the young woman went with her friends to Tweed's house in Brandesbury Square, Repton Park, Woodford Green, after a night out at the Embassy Club in Mayfair.

Her first contact with Tweed, a 22-year-old club promoter, was when he started kissing the back of her neck while wearing boxer shorts and a long dressing gown.

Tweed, who married 'Big Brother' star Goody, 27, shortly before she lost her battle against cervical cancer in March 2009, and Davis are both on bail. Tweed denies two counts of rape while Davis denies one count of the same charge.

The trial was adjourned until Monday.