Morning:
8°c
'Sally Anne murderer stabbed me in Australia 10 years ago'
Paul Cheston, Courts Correspondent18 Feb 2008
A Thai woman told today how she was stabbed and sexually assaulted in Australia by a man said to be accused killer Mark Dixie.
The economics student said she was attacked by the pub chef while he was working in Perth in 1998.
The witness, now 30, was giving evidence behind a screen at the Old Bailey trial of 37-year-old Dixie, who is accused of the murder of Sally Anne Bowman, 18, in Croydon in September 2005.
She said she was getting ready for bed at a friend's house on 21 June 1998 when a man wearing a stocking over his head climbed through the window. He had a knife.
She said: "The first thing he said was 'Do you have any money?' He was quite excited, talking quite fast. I said: 'No, please don't do anything.' He told me to take off my top. I got scared at him because he was a bit angry. I started to scream and I kicked him.
"He stabbed me. I think he tried to turn me around and then started stabbing me. I had my back to him. I think he threw me on the floor." She was stabbed eight times and blacked out. She woke to find her knickers round her knees.
Brian Altman, prosecuting, asked: '"Did you think the man had sex with you?" She said: "I think, yes."
She spent five days in hospital with a collapsed lung. Last May forensic tests on her clothes showed stains that matched Dixie's DNA profile, the court heard.
Dixie allegedly stabbed Ms Bowman seven times and then had sex with her dead body, jurors have heard. He claims that she was killed by someone else. He denies murder.
The trial continues.
