A woman has told a jury that a friend of her fiancée lured her from her home and raped her in a concrete bunker at Horseshoe Beach.

The alleged victim told the trial the accused man persuaded her to come with him by claiming she was in danger from her fiancée if she remained at the home they shared.

The woman, a non-Bermudian aged in her 40s, said she went with him in the belief he would help her escape to her home country. Instead, she claimed, he put her in a taxi and took her to the bunker where he raped her.

Neither the woman, Ms A, nor the accused man can be identified for legal reasons. The defendant has pleaded not guilty to sexual assault, and his trial at Supreme Court opened yesterday.

In answer to questions from Senior Crown Counsel Paula Tyndale, Ms A told the court she was in Bermuda on vacation at the time of the alleged attack last year. She explained her plan was to get work, and she was living with her fiancée Mr. F while awaiting permission from the immigration department. She told the court Mr. F was stressed and upset it was taking immigration so long, and he had got drunk and violent the previous month and "knocked" her on the forehead.

On the date in question, Ms A said a man she had originally seen a few days before turned up at the home she shared with Mr. F at 1.30 p.m. By the way they talked, she assumed the men were friends. Ms A said she stayed home with the visitor while her fiancée went out to get beer and cigarettes. At this point, she claimed, he told her he had known Mr. F for 20 years and she was in danger from him. Ms A said the visitor also told her he knew Mr. F was "physical" with her, giving exact details of an incident when he had been violent to her. He also told her there was a lot about her fiancée that she didn't know, she claimed.

The alleged victim said she was surprised and confused, and the visitor went on to tell her that he and a friend would help her return to her home country. Ms A explained she was eventually persuaded to pack her clothes and leave with the visitor after he told her: "You have to go right now, right now — get your stuff. If you don't do it, you will be in danger."

She explained she got in a taxi with the man who took her to a bunker on a small beach — identified to the jury by another prosecution witness as near the east side of Horseshoe Beach - telling her he was taking her to a safe place. However, she said, he then told her she would have to have sex with him. Explaining why she complied when he told her to lie down, Ms A told the court: "I didn't know where I was. I was afraid. He looked very physical and very muscular. I knew that nobody knows where I was.

She said the man made her perform various sex acts and penetrated her vagina with his penis without wearing a condom. She said she had not consented to any of this, and was sick afterwards.

Ms A described the man's demeanour as 'very nervous," and said they later left in a cab. After a brief visit to an unknown house, she said she and her assailant were waiting for another cab when a man she knew passed by and let her use his phone to call for a friend to pick her up. Meanwhile, said Ms A, her attacker jumped in a taxi and left without a word. Ms A said her fiancée reported the incident to the Police around 10 p.m. She told the court she did not know the name of her attacker, although she had heard her fiancée call him by a nickname.

In answer to questions from defence lawyer Charles Richardson, Ms A said her fiancée had been violent on two occasions last year, which caused her to become fearful for her safety. She denied a suggestion from Mr. Richardson that she took the initiative in expressing her concerns to the visitor, asserting that it was he who brought the topic up and told her she was in danger.

Earlier in the day, the jury heard from Police forensic officer Katrina Williams, who took photographs of the bunker at Horseshoe Beach. The case continues.