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A former Dunedin student has told a court of her desperate struggle to survive at the hands of a man who repeatedly raped and then tried to strangle her.
Liam James Reid denies rape, sexual violation, robbery, and attempted murder charges arising from attack on November 24 last year.
The 36-year-old also denies charges of raping and murdering Emma Agnew whose body was found north of Christchurch, after she disappeared on November 15.
Screened from Reid at the High Court in Christchurch today, the woman told how she was walking home through Dunedin after a night out drinking with friends when she was joined by a man and they began some "meaningless conversation".
As she neared her flat she said the man grabbed her by the hair, punched her and the attack began.
She was initially dragged into a closed-off area to avoid the gaze of a passer-by and said she was told if she screamed she would be killed.
She was then taken into an area of bush within a deserted carpark area.
"I remember trying to reason with him, talk to him as a human being 'Why are you doing this? Please let me go' just trying to see if there was someone in there," she told the court.
"He just told me to shut up."
The woman said a black rope tied into a noose was placed around her neck and occasionally pulled tight as a warning of what would happen if she called for help.
She said her attacker told her he had raped and killed someone in the past.
"He was constantly threatening me, telling me he was going to kill me.
"I was just begging for my life. He told me that if I was a good girl he would let me live," she said.
"He said it wasn't about power or anything like that. It was just about sex and I was just in the wrong place at wrong time."
At one point during the attack the woman said her attacker answered a call on his phone: "I asked him after he finished and he said it was his girlfriend. I asked him if she knew what he was doing and he said 'yes' and sometimes she helped him."
After being repeatedly raped the woman said the man made her search for the rope that had been around her neck and had gone missing.
When she was unable to find it, he got angry, pushed her onto her back, sat on top of her and started strangling her with his hands.
The woman said he used "extreme force... like he was trying to kill me".
"I yelled out for help, I couldn't breathe at all. He told me that no-one would hear me - there was no use in yelling out. Then everything started to go black."
The woman said she then got a "massive surge of adrenalin".
"I just felt absolute rage. I wasn't going to die like this in a bush.
"And I grabbed his testicles and squeezed them as hard as I could."
The woman said the next thing she remembered was regaining consciousness and returning to her flat where her flatmates got help.
In court today the woman identified Reid as the man who attacked her.
"I'm never going to forget that face, as long as I live I'll remember it."
