A MAN threatening to throw himself to his death from a railway viaduct confessed to his police rescuers that he had just raped a woman, a court was told yesterday.

The alleged rape victim alerted police after 44-year-old Trevor Jones used his mobile phone to call her at midnight, as he teetered on the edge of the bridge.

Cleveland Police scrambled its Islander aircraft from Teesside Airport and the crew used thermal imaging equipment to find Mr Jones, said prosecutor Peter Makepeace.

Other officers walked in pitch blackness a mile along the railway track to the Horden Viaduct, near Peterlee, to talk him down to safety, Teesside Crown Court heard.

Sergeant Tracey Whelan said that Mr Jones told her: "I've done something really bad. I've raped her.

"I'm not proud of what I've done, but I'm not afraid to admit it."

The alleged victim said that she did not tell police about the attack, in her home the day before, but they told her what Mr Jones had said.

The 35-year-old said that, as Mr Jones had raped her, she had told him. "No, I don't want this."

She told the jury: " I was crying and trying to push him away."

She said that afterwards, he handed her his mobile phone and he told her to call the police.

But she did not think they would believe her, and she doubted that Mr Jones would continue to admit raping her.

The next night, he rang her from the viaduct. "He said that he was going to jump. He said it was all my fault that he had raped me. He called me a slut and a whore," she said.

Police arrested Mr Jones for his own safety, but the next day they charged him with rape, said Mr Makepeace.

He told the court: "Jones says that sexual intercourse did take place, but that she was fully consenting at all times."

Mr Jones, of Ashton Rise, Peterlee, denies rape on May 13, last year.

The case continues