A woman snatched by pirates from an east African island and held hostage for more than six months has given evidence about her harrowing ordeal.

Judith Tebbutt, whose husband was murdered after a gang of intruders stormed their beachfront resort, spoke for the first time in detail about her kidnap terror during the trial of a man charged over the attack.

The social worker, 57, appeared in a Kenyan court via video link from the UK and relived the moment she was taken from the remote Kiwayu Safari Village, close to the African country's border with Somalia.

Mrs Tebbutt, originally from Ulverston, arrived at the safari village with husband David, 58, after visiting the Masai Mara game reserve last September. They were the resort's only guests.

It was reported she told the court she woke on the night of the raid to find several intruders armed with rifles inside the grass-woven hut where she was sleeping.

Mrs Tebbutt, from Bishop's Stortford, revealed she heard her husband shouting and saw him grappling with a member of the gang as she was dragged from the room, it was said.

She was then forced to run along the beach and hit on the back of the head with a rifle before being bundled into a boat, according to reports from the trial of Kenyan national Ali Babitu Kololo, 25 - the only man who has been charged in connection with the attack.

Mrs Tebbutt told the hearing in Lamu her captors revealed they were after money - raising her hopes that she would be freed.

However, the former hostage dealt a potential blow to the prosecution's case after reportedly telling the court she had never seen suspect Kololo before.

Kololo, who was sacked from his job at the Kiwayu Safari Village several months before the attack, denies charges of robbery with violence and kidnapping with intention to murder.