Sex and drugs ordeal in Man in Black's lair

MAN in Black Christopher Dawes has been accused of repeatedly raping a London hairdresser at his Alderney home. Millionaire businessman Mr Dawes, who died at the wheel of his McLaren F1 sports car in March 1999, has also been accused by Mandy Lawson of forcing her to take crack cocaine.

Miss Lawson, of Fountain Road, Thornton Heath, Surrey, who was aged 43 at the time, is suing his estate for six-figure damages in the High Court.

She said she was lured to Alderney over the Christmas period in 1998 and subjected to a life-destroying ordeal.

She claimed she was still enduring the mental scars of the five days of hell she endured at his hands which left her 'anxious and neurotic' and fearing for her life at the hands of his henchmen.

But defence lawyers said her story was 'all a fiction contrived for her personal gain'. Although they agreed she took hard drugs and had sexual contact with Mr Dawes, they said it was consensual.

Miss Lawson's counsel, Michael Sode QC, said she had been planning to celebrate Christmas with her boyfriend and family, but from the moment Mr Dawes came into her life on 22 December 1998, she was doomed to spend the festive season with him on Alderney 'in fear and degradation'.

He arranged for her to be flown there in his private helicopter from Battersea heliport. Taking a smart Vivienne Westwood suit with her for an expected interview, she had anticipated being back the same night or early the next morning, said Mr Sode.

But, when she arrived, she was told the airport was closing down for Christmas and it was then she first began to suspect she was Mr Dawes' effective prisoner.

The millionaire took her on a bizarre tour of a former hotel he owned, telling her that Hitler had stayed there when Alderney was under German occupation.

Mr Sode said he eventually lured her to his bedroom where a 'scene of utter squalor' greeted her eyes, with the room littered with ashtrays, glasses and empty vodka bottles.

Far from discussing her career plans, Mr Dawes spoke in a manner 'which reduced her to a state of terror', said the barrister. He said he could read her mind, had people in his pocket everywhere and could 'arrange accidents' with no fear of getting caught.

He warned her that any attempt at escape would be useless as he employed ex-SAS guards and there were cameras in every room and bugs on the phones.

He demanded her passport, telling her it was a long swim home, and, although he did allow her to phone home, it was always in his presence and she was so terrified that she had to 'speak in riddles', Mr Sode told Mr Justice Eady.

Miss Lawson finally plucked up the courage to call her boyfriend, despite the bugs she believed to be on the phones, and he contacted police in Alderney on Boxing Day morning.

At first Mr Dawes pretended to police that she wasn't there, but eventually told her to go round to the station and give a 'no comment' interview.

But she didn't do as she was told and, although she was too frightened to make a full statement at the time, she told officers that Mr Dawes had forced her into sex after plying her with hard drugs and alcohol.

Police searched one of Mr Dawes' properties and found a four gram lump of crack cocaine. They took away bed sheets and the millionaire was arrested the following day. He was later charged with possessing and supplying cocaine.

He was never charged with raping Miss Lawson and those accusations were still under investigation when he died.

In the witness box, Miss Lawson agreed she had taken Ecstasy about three times and used cannabis on a daily basis to unwind after work. However, she denied ever having taken any other hard drugs, apart from in Alderney.

She said she was so terrified of reprisals after returning from Alderney that she felt unable to go back to her salon and she and her boyfriend looked for a home in Scotland, 'because it was as far away as I could go. I didn't think he would find me there.'

'I thought I was going to be killed by someone paid by Christopher Dawes', she told the court.

Even after Mr Dawes' death, Miss Lawson, who eventually sold her story for £16,000 to the Mail on Sunday through publicity agent Max Clifford, said she still feared that 'one of his henchmen would try to kill me'.

The hearing, expected to last more than a week, continues.