A knife-wielding burglar raped a woman in her home, held her hostage and made threats to kill her, a jury has heard.

The victim spoke of a “surreal moment” following the alleged sex attack when the intruder asked for advice on the best bottle to take from her wine rack.

And she told Supreme Court that when her assailant claimed she was a nurse — which she is not — she told him: “You have the wrong person.”

The trial of the man accused of the crime opened yesterday with Senior Crown counsel Paula Tyndale alleging that after the burglary and sex attack in the early hours of November 12 2006, he took $60 from his victim’s purse. The prosecutor said he then made the woman drive to a bank and withdraw $1,000.

Neither the 54-year-old defendant, of no fixed address, nor the woman can be identified for legal reasons. The man denies charges of aggravated burglary and serious sexual assault causing bodily harm — both while armed with a knife — robbery, and deprivation of liberty.

In evidence, the victim said she was living alone at her Pembroke home at the time. She told the court how she fell asleep in the early hours of November 11 but woke around an hour later to see someone standing in her bedroom.

“I just started to scream, and as I was screaming this silhouette ran round my bed and had his arm up and I could see the silhouette of a knife. It looked like a thin knife to me (with) a skinny blade. He came right round and he immediately slapped his hand over my mouth and had his other hand, the one with the knife, up against my head,” said the woman, her voice cracking with emotion.

“He was hissing at me ‘shut up, stop screaming or I’m going to kill you’.”

The woman cried as she was asked to give explicit details of the alleged serious sexual assault that followed as she lay on her bed. She claimed the man then ordered her to take a shower, threatening to kill her if she looked in her bathroom mirror and saw him, noting in her testimony how the man “definitely knew” about the location of this mirror.

She told the jury he asked what bank she was with and how much money she could withdraw from her account, before letting her out of the shower.

She added that, instructing her to cover her face with her hands so she could not see him, he led her downstairs where he rambled about her being a nurse married to a doctor, which she told him she was not.

She said she was puzzled when he told her: “They told me that you were the nurse and you had a lot of gold jewellery”.

And she told the court that when she asked who “they” were, he replied: “Well, I’ve stolen their heroin and they’re mad, and I need to get the money for the heroin for them, and they’ve told me to come here because you are the nurse with the jewellery.”

She continued: “So, I’m saying to him: ‘I’m not. You have the wrong person’.”

During this conversation, she told the jury, the man remarked he was surprised she didn’t wake up when he broke a window to get into her home.

Asked by Ms Tyndale what happened next, the woman said the man continued to threaten her with the knife and make her keep her hands in front of her face while he sounded like he was clearing up glass from a broken bathroom window and she felt “very frightened”.

Later, she said, he took her downstairs and rummaged through her purse, taking cash. Noticing a wine rack he said: “Oh, do you mind if I take a bottle of wine?”

The woman said when she replied no, he asked “what would you recommend?” before complaining he could not find the bottles of red in the rack.

“I was getting annoyed really. Here we are talking about the wine. This is insane really, and certainly surreal,” she said.

Next, she continued, he took her out of the front door to her car, saying they were going to the bank.

The woman is set to continue her evidence tomorrow, with the trial slated to last around a week.

‘Shut up ... or I’m going to kill you’