A 46-year-old woman who had sex with a 14-year-old boy believed he was older because of how “dominant” he was with her, an Old Bailey jury heard.

Amanda Lockhart, of Mickleham Way, New Addington, said the boy “put her in a submissive mode” and “manoeuvred” her into sleeping with him and posing for nude photos, before trying to blackmail her for £500 after telling her his real age.

She denies grooming the boy and forcing him to have sex despite knowing he was 14.

In court today Ms Lockhart repeated her claim that the boy had shown her passport proving he was 17.

But Jose Olivares-Chandler, prosecuting, said Ms Lockhart “never had a doubt that” the boy was underage, and groomed him over a number of weeks before forcing him to have sex with her in an upstairs bathroom on January 23, 2014.

On one occasion, Mr Olivares-Chandler claimed, Ms Lockhart had performed oral sex on the victim after “putting your finger to your lips, telling him to be quiet."

But Ms Lockhart denied having any sexual attraction to the boy before January 23 last year.

She said: “I never had to tell him anything, he was the one who was dominating and being like that with me.

“He put me in a submissive sort of mode. I can’t explain it.

“It was in the sense that he was so dominant, I just sort of felt…and I then believed him. It was almost like I gave in.

“He came on to me. The way he did, he sort of manoeuvred me.”

Judge Rebecca Poulet asked Ms Lockhart why she had let the boy take naked photos of her on his phone.

Ms Lockhart said the boy had pleaded with her, adding: “He badgered it out of me.”

But Mr Olivares-Chandler pointed out that Ms Lockhart had two previous convictions for assaulting a police officer, which he said suggested that “you don’t do things you're told”.

He asked Ms Lockhart whether she took responsibility for sleeping with the boy.

She said: “No, I blame him. If he hadn’t come on to me like that I wouldn’t have done anything.

“When I look back I think, could I have tried to do things differently? Even if I had been really dominant with him I dread to think what could have happened."

She also denied hearing the victim cry soon after having sex with him, adding: “The sweet little boy you knew, it’s not the person that was there.”

Earlier in the hearing, George Crivelli, defending, had asked Ms Lockhart to describe the moments immediately after having sex with the boy in the upstairs bathroom.

She said: “I go downstairs, and I could hear him talking...with someone. Then he comes down the stairs, but he’s come off the phone.

“He said, ‘You’re in trouble lady, I’m not 17, I’m 14. But I said, I’ve seen you’re passport.

“Then he starts saying he wants £500 from me, or there will be trouble. He says to me, ‘My cousin said you better give us the money, don’t make us angry.”

Ms Lockhart said she did not hand over any money.

Asked how she now felt about having sex with the boy, Ms Lockhart said: “I feel sick, I feel absolutely in a state over it. I would never have even gone with a 17-year-old, but it’s just the way it happened.

"Even when I thought he was 17 I was feeling ill from it, but when they said he was 14 I thought, oh my god."

The trial continues.