A woman has told a jury in the Levi Bellfield case how a man fitting his description tried to abduct her nine years ago.

Rachel Cowles, who was 11 at the time, told the Old Bailey she was walking home from school when Bellfield stopped in his red car and ask her if she wanted a lift home.

The alleged abduction took place near a bus stop in Upper Halliford Way in Shepperton on March 20, 2002, the day before Milly Dowler was taken.

Miss Cowles said: “I remember him saying hello I've just moved in next door would you like a lift home?

“I said ‘No thank you, it's all right’.

Convicted killer Levi Bellfield, 42, who lived in Manor Road, Twickenham, before moving to Collingwood Place, Walton, denies trying to abduct Rachel Cowles.

The former wheel clamper and doorman, also denies murdering Walton schoolgirl Milly as she walked home from school.

At the Old Bailey this morning, Miss Cowles’ mother Diana, said: "She rushed through the door and told me she had been approached by a man."

She said her daughter had burst into tears as she spoke to a policeman on the telephone afterwards, "because of the enormity of it hit home".

Miss Cowles told how a red car pulled up alongside her with its window wound down.

She said it was driven by a white man, in his 30s to 40s with an earring, which the jury has been told Bellfield wore at the time.

Asked about the man's head she said: "It was rather chubby."

"I remember seeing the upper part of his body and it looked rather large to me."

Although Surrey Police kept a log of the call, no action was taken and no police officer sent to their home, the jury heard.

But three years later, on March 17, 2005, Mrs Cowles phoned police after watching a TV appeal about the Milly Dowler case and showing the red Daewoo Nexia later linked to Bellfield.

Asked by defence counsel Jeffrey Samuels QC where a detail about the suspect having a beard, mentioned to police for the first time in the 2005 phone call, came from she said she did not remember.

Asked the same question Diana Cowles said: "I can't remember. Rachel must have said something about him having a beard."

But Miss Cowles denied being influenced in her description by subsequent Milly Dowler media coverage.

The jury was also told she failed to identify Levi Bellfield in a police lineup in 2005.

Earlier in the trial, the jury was told of Bellfield's previous convictions, the murder of French student Amelie Delagrange on Twickenham Green, the murder of Marsha McDonell near her home in Hampton and the attempted murder of Kate Sheedy.

The trial continues.