A FORMER model and hairdresser was awarded record damages of £250,000 yesterday in a rare civil claim brought after she was kidnapped and repeatedly raped over three days while held prisoner.

Amanda Lawson embarked on a High Court action against the estate of the computer millionaire Chris Dawes, who she claimed had drugged and raped her in a terrifying ordeal in 1998. Miss Lawson was awarded £259,000 damages with interest by Mr Justice Eady in a decision described by her solicitors as a record award in a civil claim for rape.

Last month Ms Lawson, of Thornton Heath, South London, broke down in tears as she told the judge that she had been frozen in fear of her life and felt like a rag doll as Dawes, the founder of Micromuse, who used to live at Dunmow, Essex, drugged and raped her at his hotel.

She claims that she suffered her three-day ordeal in December 1998 on the Channel island of Alderney where Dawes had invited her on the pretext of a job interview for running a modelling agency.

Three months later, while the police investigations continued, Dawes died at the age of 39 in a crash at the wheel of his McLaren F1 sports car.

Ms Lawson, now 42, lodged a civil claim against his estate that led to a six-day High Court trial. Awarding damages yesterday, the judge said that Ms Lawson’s evidence tended to confirm that she had “not been able to put to one side the horrors of her experience altogether”.

He hoped that once the claim was disposed of “some form of closure” could be achieved for Ms Lawson.

She said later: “I hope that my actions give other rape victims the courage to stand up to their attackers, no matter who they are or how long it takes.”

Her solicitor, Jill Greenfield of Field Fisher Waterhouse, said: “Amanda suffered an horrific ordeal at the hands of Christopher Dawes. This is, I understand, one of the highest awards made by a UK court in a rape case and reflects the truly devastating nature of what Amanda has been through.”

Ms Lawson alleged that Dawes raped her in his bedroom after forcing her to smoke crack cocaine and drink neat vodka. She had admitted in cross examination that she did not try to fight him off but added: “I felt like a rag doll with no control over my body. I thought I was going to die.”

She told the court that she had been left a shadow of her former self by the ordeal and was no longer the same positive outgoing, confident and ambitious person.

The rape was said to have taken place when Miss Lawson flew to Alderney to meet Dawes for what she described as the opportunity of a lifetime, to manage a modelling agency. Mr Justice Eady said: “According to her evidence Christopher Dawes forced Ms Lawson to smoke crack cocaine [which she had never tried before] and, while she was under its influence and unable to offer any effective resistance, had sexual intercourse with her on a number of occasions and submitted her to other indignities.”

Lawyers for the estate had argued that she knew perfectly well what she was doing and was a willing participant, he said. Ms Lawson maintained that she was terrified of Dawes and that he dominated her by veiled threats and what she called “mind games”.

The judge described her as a rather naive and impressionable woman. But, ruling that she was telling the truth, he said that it seemed clear that she “was constrained by the apprehension of violence” and that she was falsely imprisoned from soon after her arrival in Alderney during the afternoon of 23 December, 1998, until she found her way to the police at 11am on December 26. “

She had no wish to have a sexual relationship, either short-term or otherwise, with Christopher Dawes,” the judge said. “She did not at any time consent.”

Explore Law

• Columnists

• Law Panel

• Law Reports

• Student Law

Times Recommends

• UK legal industry faces loss of 10,000 lawyers
• Curious case of chocolate bunny trademark
• Divorce settlement granted after 22 years