A WOMAN told a court she put her clothes in a bag and made sure not to shower after an alleged rape.

The 21-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was giving evidence yesterday at Swindon Crown Court against Michael Gibbs, 27, and Daniel Ward, 25.

Gibbs, of The Willows in Highworth, and Ward, of North Wall, Cricklade, deny raping her at an address in Gorse Hill in the early hours of a February morning last year.

Yesterday she was cross-examined by Ward's counsel, Peter Fortune, who suggested she had made up her rape allegations through shame at having willingly had sex with the men.

He also suggested this was why she had not immediately called the police.

The woman replied: "I did not know what to do. I was scared of not being believed.

"But I was planning on going to the police I put my clothes into a carrier bag and did not have a shower and I went to the Samaritans.

"I had watched a TV programme some time before and it had showed a girl who had been raped and gone to the police.

"Nobody had believed her and her life had been made hell by the public.

"That's what I was scared of happening but I knew deep in my heart that I had to go to the police because I had been raped."

Mr Fortune tried to highlight what he said were inconsistencies between the woman's original statement to the police and her evidence in court.

However, the woman repeatedly insisted she had been raped and said more of the chain of events had returned to her mind as time following the alleged rape had passed.

Gibbs' counsel, Alan Fuller, pointed out that when she heard from a friend that she was supposed to have slept with the two men, her first concern had seemed to be safeguarding her reputation.

The woman replied that she had realised that the men would be lying about the events of that night to cover up their alleged offence.

The woman also denied Mr Fuller's suggestion that she had drunk so much before meeting the men at a Swindon nightclub that she was unable to remember precisely what happened.

Mr Fuller suggested that she had been flirty.

The woman replied: "I may have been flirting but I did not want to be raped and I did not want to have sex with them and I did not want to kiss them."

Earlier in the hearing, the judge, Keith Cutler, had to temporarily halt proceedings when the woman became distressed while talking about her alleged ordeal.

She told prosecutor Susan Evans she had been tricked into getting into a taxi with the men because one of them pretended to telephone the friend she was with and say they would all meet later.

She said that, following the alleged rapes, she visited the walk-in clinic in Swindon's Carfax Street, fearing possible pregnancy.

The trial continues.

Barrie Hudson