Grace Millane trial: Woman on previous Tinder date says accused 'did choke me a bit'

Warning: Contains graphic content of a sexual nature.

The second week of the trial for the man accused of murdering Grace Millane is underway, with the court hearing evidence from other women who had matched with the accused on Tinder.

On Friday the court heard expert forensic evidence about what police found in the accused killer's downtown Auckland apartment.

Experts said DNA tests provided "extremely strong scientific support" that blood found in the CityLife hotel room was Millane's.

A 27-year-old man, who has interim name suppression, is charged with murdering her in December last year as she was travelling the world as part of a year-long solo OE.

Crown prosecutors allege that on the night of December 1 - the eve of Millane's 22nd birthday - the accused strangled the young Brit to death in his central city apartment after the pair spent the night drinking.

After arriving in Auckland, the recent university graduate was matched with her accused killer on the dating app Tinder.

Millane's body was found crammed into a suitcase and dumped in a shallow grave in Auckland's Waitakere Ranges a week later.

The Herald brings you the latest updates from the courtroom today:

'I couldn't breathe ... I was terrified'

1.00pm

A third woman who matched with the accused on the dating app Tinder is giving evidence.

She agreed to meet the young man for a drink in Auckland's CBD in early November 2018.

However, instead of going to a bar the pair went back to the accused's apartment at the CityLife hotel.

"He wanted to get changed out of his suit first," she said.

But instead of moving on they bought some alcohol from a shop across the road and returned to the hotel room to have some drinks.

"We'd been talking about, like, how much he loved me and wanted to be with me and he walked over and kissed me.

"And then he tried to lead me over to the bed," she said, adding the accused grabbed his arm.

She told the young man: "We're not having sex."

"Oh why not?" she said the accused replied.

However, after the pair sat on the bed together the accused removed his pants, she said.

'He was trying to kiss me and then he removed his pants."

The young woman then began giving him oral sex.

The accused, she told the court, later climbed onto the bed.

"He just sat down on my face," she said through tears. "I couldn't breathe."

Her forearms were also held down, the court heard.

"I couldn't move my arms, I couldn't breathe, so I started kicking - trying to indicate I couldn't breathe," she said.

"I couldn't move my arms because he had too much weight on them."

She attempted to struggle free with "all my might".

"I couldn't breathe … I was terrified.

"He just sat there, he didn't move at all."

The then-university student told the court she managed to "turn my head slightly to the left so I could get a slither of breath".

She then feigned unconsciousness.

"'Cause then maybe he'd realise something was wrong.

"He still didn't get off.

"There were so many thoughts running through my mind ... This can't be the way I die ... I started thinking about my family and my friends. They can't read about this."

'I didn't feel comfortable meeting him'

11.30am

Another Auckland woman has told the court she matched with the accused on Tinder in February 2018.

She would continue to communicate with him via Facebook and phone the next year but never actually met the accused.

Some of their chats, she said, turned sexual.

She told the court the accused mentioned he enjoyed strangulation during sex.

"He wanted to tell me what he liked and so he did," she said.

The accused's room in the CityLife apartment complex in downtown Auckland.

Other sexual predilections included feet and domination, the woman told the court.

"He would talk about enjoying it and why he liked it ... Because it made him feel more superior and in control."

The woman said she last heard from the accused on about December 4 last year - just days after Millane died.

She said the accused had also wanted to go on a date during the weekend of December 1.

But she added: "I didn't feel comfortable meeting him with some of the things he wanted me to do."

During cross-examination by defence lawyer Ron Mansfield, the woman said while she didn't meet with the accused she would send explicit photos of herself to him.

At his request she also sent him photos of her feet.

Mansfield also suggested his client never mentioned to the woman in a phone call that he liked rough sex or strangulation.

"He definitely did," she replied.

Accused's Tinder date: 'He did choke me a bit'

10.47am

An Auckland woman who went on a Tinder date with the accused just a week before he met Millane says she had rough sex with the alleged killer.

The waitress matched with the accused in November last year and the pair exchanged phone numbers and began messaging each other.

"We asked each other what we prefer during sex," she said.

"I said 'I prefer rough sex and choking'. He did say he likes rough sex as well."

She told the court today that on the night of November 22 she met with the accused "at his place" - the CityLife hotel.

"It was a nice place, it looked nice. He met me in the lobby ... we went up to his room."

During the woman's evidence the accused was observed taking gulps, wiping his nose and looking down with his head between his legs.

"I drank rum and coke and he drank Heineken," the woman said, adding the pair had a friendly but personal conversation.

"It started off as just talking to each other.

"After he went to the toilet, on the way out he kissed me and it slowly moved to the bed."

Millane and the accused were filmed by CCTV cameras during their Tinder date.

She said the two had sex and the accused "did choke me a bit because that's a preference of mine".

He had one hand around her neck, she recalled.

"It was fine, it was consensual.

"My breath was a bit restricted but it was something that gave me pleasure. I didn't have to push him off me, he let go when I reached...

"It wasn't too hard that I was gasping for air, it wasn't so soft that I wouldn't be able to feel it ... it was just the right amount of pressure."

Later the pair had a couple of pizzas in the room before she left for home about an hour later, the court heard.

However, the woman had left her glasses at the accused's apartment.

She messaged him about retrieving her glasses, while the accused was later keen to meet up again, the woman said.

"He did wonder why I left so suddenly after we met up, after we had sex.

"I just said that I wanted to go home.

"He wanted to meet up for sex again but I just didn't feel it anymore - that was a week later around the 26th, 27th of November."

The woman then saw the accused again when he was on his date with Millane on the night of December 1.

She was working at one of the bars Millane and her alleged killer drank at.

"He came in with a young lady and walked across the bar to go to a table.

"As he went up to pay I went up to him, I did say 'Hi [accused] how's it going?'

"As he was paying I just yelled '[Accused] when can I get my glasses back?'"

She recalled the young man, who said he now lived in Mt Eden, said: "Oh yeah, tonight."

On the morning of December 4 the accused returned the woman's glasses to her work.

"He messaged me and said he'd dropped them off and sorry for the whole thing," she told the court.

It was the last contact she had with him.

Below is a look back at what the jury has heard so far.

'Grace can't tell us'

Crown prosecutor Robin McCoubrey said on Wednesday in the High Court at Auckland only two people could answer what happened in the apartment on December 1.

"Grace can't tell us."

McCoubrey said the evidence included the discovery of the young woman's body, which had been stuffed into a Warehouse suitcase and buried in a shallow grave, and CCTV footage of the pair shot in central Auckland only hours before she vanished.

The CCTV last showed Millane alive about 9.40pm that day entering Auckland's CityLife Hotel with the accused.

The cameras showed her and the accused enjoying themselves at bars and eateries near SkyCity, and kissing before entering the accused's apartment.

"But of course it's what happened inside the room that counts," McCoubrey said.

Lawyer Ian Brookie, who is leading the defence team, told the jury Millane died not from a murder but from "a perfectly ordinary, casual sexual encounter between a young couple".

More specifically "an act designed to enhance their sexual pleasure that went wrong".

"Put simply this was an accident, it was not murder," Brookie said.

But McCoubrey said the Crown would also rely on evidence about the accused's actions after Millane died.

He claimed several internet searches were made by the accused after her death in the early hours of December 2. These included searches for the Waitakere Ranges and for "hottest fire" at 1.35am.

"It's plain that Ms Millane is dead at this point," McCoubrey said.

"He is trying to find a place to hide her body ... he is trying to find a means of disposing of her body."

The accused also searched for pornography and took several intimate photos of Millane's body, McCoubrey said.

Later, the court heard, the accused bought several cleaning products, including hiring a Rug Doctor machine, and a suitcase which Millane's body was contorted to fit inside.

However, McCoubrey said, the accused went on another Tinder date while Millane's body was still in the apartment.

'Something seemed out of place'

From the moment Grace Millane began messaging her best friend about a mystery man she was on a date with, "something seemed out of place," the court heard last Thursday.

"I'm on a date with a guy who is a manager of an oil company," Millane messaged her best friend Ameena Ashcroft on Facebook.

In a statement read to the court, however, Ashcroft recalled feeling "a bit concerned" and that "something seemed out of place".

In a series of further messages to Ashcroft, Millane said: "Cocktails all round" and "he was like 'it's [my] birthday tomorrow, we are getting smashed'."

"I click with him so well," the British backpacker said in a message.

"I will let you know what happens tomorrow."

But tomorrow's message never came.

After drinking at Andy's Burger Bar at SkyCity and the Mexican Cafe on Victoria St West, the pair had made their way to the Bluestone Room — a pub just metres from the CityLife apartment where the accused lived and Millane died.

By 9.10pm the pair appeared to be comfortable in each other's company and they kissed several times.

At 9.40pm the pair leave the Bluestone Room and make the short walk to the CityLife hotel. The accused has his arm around Millane's shoulders and the pair enter the hotel lift, destined for the third floor.

It is the last image police have recovered of Millane alive.

DNA detectives

Spattered blood was discovered in the CityLife hotel apartment, the court heard on Friday.

It was found on and under the carpet and in small drops on a small white fridge.

Sensitive luminol tests also revealed what appeared to be bloody footprints near the bed.

The blood, Crown experts told the court, was thousands of millions of times more likely to have come from Millane than anyone else.

Dianne Crenfeldt, an expert forensic scientist from the Institute of Environmental Science and Research, told the court about her analysis of the "probable blood staining" in the apartment.

One area was 70cm in diameter and also had some "circular smearing within it". A smaller area of possible blood staining was found near the wardrobe and was 30cm in diameter.

The underside of the carpet and the concrete floor also showed "probable blood staining".
Crenfeldt told the jury there was "strong support" for the proposition that a clean-up of blood had occurred in the apartment.

Evidence of a possible clean-up, she said, included circular marks, small drips of blood, footprints and smears.

During cross-examination, the accused's lawyer, Ian Brookie, said his client had told police he "encountered a small amount of blood on the floor and with the use of various cleaning products he went about trying to clean it up".

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