A man has gone on trial accused of raping and attempting to murder a woman at a house in Peterhead.
Mark Fraser is alleged to have attacked the woman when her back was turned – throttling her with a scarf until she believed she was seconds from death.
During the first day of Fraser’s trial at the High Court in Aberdeen yesterday, jurors heard that after he finished strangling his victim the 43-year-old then ordered her to carry out a sex act on him before raping her on the living room floor.
At the beginning of the case the jury of seven men and eight women were informed that the accused was prepared to plead guilty to a reduced charge of assault to the endangerment of the woman’s life.
His defence counsel, advocate Shelagh McCall, told the court that her client accepted attacking the woman with a scarf, but denied he had tried to kill her.
He also denied all sexual elements to the charge.
This plea was not accepted by the Crown.
The woman he is accused of attacking told the court Fraser was “no monster” and said she believed he was truly sorry for the way he behaved on November 28 last year.
Giving evidence about the incident she said: “At the time I did not know it was a scarf, I just felt something round my neck.
“I just started to panic as it was getting tighter and tighter. I was trying to scream and to shout ‘help’ because we were in a block of four flats so I hoped someone would hear me.”
The woman told the court she tried to prise the scarf from her neck with her fingers.
And at one point she claimed Fraser asked her “are you dead yet?”.
She added: “At the start I did manage to get it so far loose and I did manage to shout. I do not think I was shouting anything in particular, I was just screaming and trying to pull it away from my throat.”
The woman said this lasted for around two to three minutes.
She added: “I got to the point I was no longer able to breathe. I was going blue, I was looking at Mark and he was looking at me.
“I could not speak. I did not have any breath left in me to speak.”
When asked by advocate depute Katariina Maguire, prosecuting, how the incident ended she replied: “He just stopped. I believe he realised what he was doing and stopped.
“He could see that I did not have any breath left in me. I was just on the floor, I just thought I was away to die. I thought that was my life over.”
The woman claimed that after the strangulation Fraser sexually assaulted and raped her.
The court heard that on the day of the attack, Fraser went to the flat the woman was staying at with a holdall.
In the bag, which was later seized by police who were called by a distressed neighbour, they found a number of items including masking tape, string, a hammer and a screwdriver.
The court heard that when the woman was interviewed by police she told them that seconds before they arrived to help her Fraser had been holding the masking tape.
She told them he had threatened to gag her with the tape.
When she asked Fraser if he was going to kill her he said he was going to kill himself for what he had done to her.
The court heard that when police officers arrived at the flat the woman had bruising and cuts around her neck where she had been strangled.
She also had red patches under her eyes where blood vessels had burst.
The trial continues.
