Hannah Foster, 17, dialed the emergency services in the hope that the operator would be able to hear the nature of her conversation with Maninder Pal Singh Kohli, a man said to have snatched her off a Southampton street as she walked home in 2003.

However, Winchester Crown Court was told, the operator could not hear what was being said and Hannah could not speak directly to the emergency services. As a result the police system automatically disconnected the call, a response intended to prevent the service becoming clogged with accidental calls from cell phones.

Haggan added that DNA later taken from Kohli matched semen found at the crime scene.