Pop star tells of death threats

Billie Piper

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Pop star Billie Piper told a jury she was left terrified and tearful by a string of night-time phone calls threatening to cut her head off, burn her body to "cinders" and shoot her parents.

"They were just awful, the worst thing I have ever had to listen to and actually, you know, quite scary," she told London's Blackfriars Crown Court on Tuesday.

"They were just horrific. I couldn't understand why anybody would want to say these things. I have done nothing personally. I had no intentions of upsetting anyone and it just seemed very bizarre and it made me cry."

With barely a glance at her alleged tormentor, 32-year-old Juliet Peters, who sat just feet away in the dock, the teenager said she was so distressed as police played the taped answer phone messages made to her recording company that she was tempted to flee the room.

"I didn't know whether to go out or stay and I was scared about the effect it would have on my parents."

Peters, of Canning Town, East London, denies making five threats to kill the singer between August 14 and 25 last year, as well as four similar charges concerning the pop star's parents Paul Piper and Mandy Kent.

Billie, who wore a designer bottle green trouser suit with green, blue and grey patterned trainers for her 20-minute appearance in the witness box, began her evidence by telling the jury of seven women and five men that she was working in Canada when the calls were made.

She returned to Britain to find a police investigation under way, and then to be asked to listen to some of the taped messages.

She said she managed to sit through the first two, in which she was variously described as a "cow and whore", followed by references to being "cut up into little pieces".

The singer told the court the third tape then began in which the caller threatened: "I am going to kill her parents. I see them shopping all the time, so they are going to get their heads cut off soon."

At that stage she decided she could listen to no more.

Tom MacKinnon, defending, then asked Billie if it was right that over the years some "really nasty" letters had been sent to her fan club.

The singer, who first topped the charts three years ago with Because We Want To, agreed, saying that was the reason her parents gave up running the club from their home in Swindon, and handed it over to the record company.

She later agreed that such "unwanted attention" had dogged her throughout her career.

The case continues.

Billie Piper

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