A survivor of the notorious Babes in the Wood murderer offered the killer her £1 sweets money if he spared her life.
Racheal Watts was seven years old when she was taken from her home in Whitehawk, Brighton, and molested by sick Russell Bishop - who then left her for dead.
More than three years earlier in October 1986 Bishop had murdered nine-year-olds Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadaway, but would not be convicted until 2018.
Rachael, now 40, and a mum of four, waived her right to anonymity to reveal her horrifying tale for the first time.
She said she woke up under a thicket in the Sussex countryside after the attack on Sunday, February 4, 1990.
Her family had only just moved to the Whitehawk estate in Brighton days earlier when she went out on her roller skates.
She skated to a sweetshop with money her dad had given her but it was shut.
Then, being new to the area, she became lost and asked Bishop - a stranger - for directions.
The unemployed roofer bundled her into his Ford Cortina.
Police blunders had led to him walking free from court in 1987 after a jury cleared him of the murders of Nicola and Karen.
Rachael told The Sun: “I don’t remember anything about my childhood before I was kidnapped. But every detail of that day is burned into my brain.
“He had a moustache very similar to my dad, and was working on his car, and my dad was a car mechanic, so it didn’t occur to me that he was a danger."
As Bishop drove off at speed with Rachael in the boot she screamed.
She recalled: “He yelled at me to shut it or he’d kill me. I said, ‘I can give you money, I’ve got a pound’.”
Rachael used a hammer to bang dents into the boot - which would later form part of the prosecution's case.
She also managed to memorise every detail she could, including all the items in the boot, which she would later relay to police.
Bishop drove to Devil's Dyke on the Sussex Downs, before putting Rachael on the backseat and stripping her naked.
He sexually assaulted the little girl and then tried to strangle her to death.
Rachael passed out for what medics later estimated was a few minutes.
“When I woke up, everything hurt. I was in mud underneath gorse bushes — he must have shoved me there to hide my body," she said.
Rachael was naked and bleeding and freezing cold in the pitch black.
She was stranded in 45 acres of downland - but suddenly spotted a car's headlights.
Fearing it was Bishop she was hesitant but realised she would die if she didn't get out of the plummeting temperatures.
Unable to call out due to her throat injuries, Rachael staggered and crawled to the car - where a couple were sat drinking coffee after a day out.
They wrapped her in a jacket and called the police.
At hospital, doctors couldn't believe she had survived the ordeal without brain damage.
Three days after the attack Rachael was called in to the police station for an identity parade.
She said Bishop had changed his hairstyle but she recognised him immediately.
At the trial 10 months later Rachael gave evidence in court - though could never bring herself to use his name and instead referred to him as "that man".
Bishop was convicted of kidnap, indecent assault and attempted murder in December 1990 and sentenced to a minimum of 13 years.
Rachael would go on to be haunted by the memory of Bishop, afraid to even go outside as a child.
As a teenager she turned to alcohol.
She left school at 16 and married her first husband two years later.
Her second marriage bore three children before her third saw her wed the man of her dreams, Justin, in 2014.
At Bishop's 2018 trial, he admitted for the first time he had attacked Rachael.
He claimed he had done it to lash out at being accused of the Babes in the Wood murders - which led Rachael to have a breakdown.
Bishop was finally given a 36-year minimum tariff for the murders.
He died at Durham's HMP Frankland in January, and Rachael said she "finally started to recover".
