A drunk teenager thought she might die after being picked up by a "predator" in a Norwich nightclub before being taken to his car where she was raped, a court has heard.

Shahan Ali, 30, was “stone-cold sober” when he entered Reload nightclub on Prince of Wales Road in Norwich before separating a drunk 17-year-old girl from her boyfriend and taking her to his car.

Norwich Crown Court heard the complainant, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had “an awful lot to drink” was taken to Ali’s car.

Gareth Hughes, opening the case for the prosecution on Monday, March 8, said the teenager was driven back to the car park of the Holiday Inn on Ipswich Road in the city where Ali had been staying.

He said: “She was in a lot of trouble when she got into his car because once in there he wouldn’t let her go".

He added that once the complainant was in the car Ali forced himself upon her, forcing her to engage in a sex act.

Ali, from Glasgow, has gone on trial after denying false imprisonment and rape on February 19 last year.

The jury of six men and six women were told Ali videoed himself forcing himself on the complainant with still images of the incident being found on the defendant’s phone after it was examined by police.

The teenager went to Bethel Street Police Station at about 4am on February 19 last year when she told officers and her mother she was “sorry” and “didn’t want to do it” but was made to.

She remembered going to a car and “trying to get out but the man kept locking the doors”.

Mr Hughes said she “remembered being scared” and thought “she might die”.

When he was interviewed Ali told police he had tried to help the complainant who had been extremely drunk and did not have her phone.

He said she had performed the sex act on him and denied he stopped her from leaving the car and insisted he was just trying to help.

But Mr Hughes said had not been a Good Samaritan that night but was a “predator” who had seen she was vulnerable as she was extremely drunk.

The trial continues.