A hairdresser lured a client back to his house and raped her before stabbing her through the chest in a desperate bid to keep her quiet, a court heard.

Louis Lennon, 31 of Westgate Road, South Norwood, invited his female victim back to his home to discuss hairstyles, but then made a pass at her, it is claimed.

When she turned him down, he flew into a rage, slapped her face and raped her, jurors heard.

Six months later her friends stabbed and pistol-whipped Lennon in a brutal revenge attack.

And so to silence his victim for good, Lennon allegedly lay in wait for her outside her Streatham home and stabbed her eight times, puncturing her lung, Inner London Crown Court heard on Monday.

She told jurors how Lennon raped her on July 25, 2006, after he suggested the pair go to his house to talk about hair. When they got there he tried to persuade her to have sex with him. After she refused he slapped her across the face, pulled her jeans off and raped her, she claimed.

She said she did not report the rape because "it was her word against him".

In December the woman was at a club with her boyfriend and other friends when she spotted Lennon. She begged her boyfriend to take her home - but then his friends set about Lennon and stabbed him twice and struck him with a pistol.

Prosecutor James Dawson said Lennon could not report the attack because the police would find out about the rape - and decided to kill his victim instead.

Mr Dawson told the court how, last March, the victim was walking down her street when a man in dark clothes and a hood came out of a car, came up behind her and tripped or pushed her to the ground.

"She looked up and saw it was Lennon," he said. "She then felt what she thought were punches to her body during a brief, frenzied attack and he ran off."

She had been stabbed eight times and received several stitches and remained in hospital for a few days.

Lennon was arrested after police put a wanted poster of him in his local bank and when he went in staff recognised him and called 999.

Lennon denies rape and attempted murder on March 25 last year.

The trial continues.