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A former Dunedin student has told a court she refused to die at the hands of a man who took a phone call amid bouts of raping and beating her.
Prosecutors say it was Liam James Reid who raped and tried to kill the woman, then 20, on
the streets of Dunedin last November - nine days after allegedly raping and murdering deaf Christchurch woman Emma Agnew.
Reid, 36, denies being responsible for either attack.
The Dunedin victim told the High Court at Christchurch that everything started to go black as her attacker, having already raped her, sat on top of her and started strangling her.
"I just got a massive surge of adrenaline and I just felt absolute rage.
"I just thought, 'I'm not going to die like this. This person's not going to kill me.' And I grabbed his testicles and squeezed them and twisted them as hard as I could."
She lost consciousness and was unsure how she got away, but the next thing she remembered was running to her flat, where she got help.
The woman, now living in Australia, told the court she came across her attacker as she walked home after a night out drinking.
She recalled talking to the man on "meaningless subjects and topics" before he grabbed her by the hair and struck her in the head.
He pulled her into a concealed area to avoid a passer-by and warned her she would die if she screamed.
"I was just absolutely shocked and I couldn't believe what was happening. I was just terrified."
Her attacker told her he had raped and killed someone before.
She was dragged into bush in a nearby carpark and a rope was tied around her neck to control her.
"I remember trying to reason with him. I talked to him as a human being: 'Why are you doing this, you don't have to do this. Please let me go.' Just trying to ... see if there was someone in there. He just told me to shut up."
The threats continued as she was repeatedly raped, she said. "I was just begging for my life. He told me that if I was a good girl he would let me live.
"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."
She said at one point his cellphone rang and he answered it. "After he finished talking ... he said it was his girlfriend. I asked him if she knew what he was doing and he said 'yes', and that sometimes she helped him."
In court yesterday 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."
When questioned by Reid's lawyer, David Bunce, she agreed she had made no mention of tattoos to police in her description of her attacker.
Reid was "covered in tattoos", Mr Bunce said.
The woman told him: "I could only recall his face."
The trial is continuing.
