A woman who claims she was seriously sexually assaulted and threatened with a knife in her house could not account for a "missing one and a half hours," a Supreme Court jury heard yesterday.

The alleged victim said the 34-year-old man punched her to the floor of her kitchen after she told him it was "none of his business" that she was going on a trip to New York. He continued punching her head, lifted her up by the throat, took out an eight inch carving knife and ordered her into the living room where she was forced to strip off, she said.

The woman said she was then ordered upstairs to a bedroom, with the knife touching her back, then seriously sexually assaulted.

The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons but who knows the woman, denies seriously sexually assaulting her and causing her grievous bodily harm at a house in Sandys on March 12 last year.

The woman told the jury and Assistant Justice Charles-Etta Simmons that she received 15 stitches to her ear as a result of the attack.

Defence lawyer Mark Pettingill cross-examined the alleged victim and said there was a missing one and a half hours in her story.

The woman said she arrived home at about 7.30 p.m. and the attack in the kitchen happened then.

She said he had sex with her twice - lasting two minutes on each occasion - and that he performed oral sex on her for five minutes. Her evidence was that they talked for 25 minutes in the upstairs bedroom and then for 20 minutes downstairs after having sex.

Mr. Pettingill said this meant the sex attacks and the talking were completed by 8.40 p.m. The woman testified her husband left at around 10.15 p.m. and she called Police immediately afterwards. Mr. Pettingill asked: "Where is the missing one and a half hours?"

She replied: "I am sorry, I didn't time all the acts that took place."

Mr. Pettingill said: "I suggest that the sex acts took much longer than the nine minutes."

The alleged victim disagreed, but added: "I can't put a direct time on these acts. When you are in that condition you can't." She denied they had spent time talking on the sofa downstairs before having sex and rejected Mr. Pettingill's suggestion that she became aroused.

The lawyer continued: "However we cut it, this all took place over at least two hours 45 minutes." She agreed.

He asked why she did not leave the house after the alleged attacks when she was making tea, if the knife was left in an upstairs bedroom.

She said: "No (he did not have the knife) but he was able to hold me down".

Mr. Pettingill asked her if she felt "fortunate" not to have suffered a fractured skull or serious injuries to her head if the man had been repeatedly punching her head.

She replied: "I felt very fortunate to have walked away from that incident with my life."

Mr. Pettingill said: "I suggest you had consensual sex."

"No sir."

"I suggest you had consensual sex that lasted at least half an hour."

"No sir."

The woman admitted she was planning to go to New York to meet a man she had contacted over the Internet through a Yahoo personal advert and that she had booked a hotel room for them. The woman used the code name "Wild Child" to contact the man, but she said she used the Internet to meet male and female friends because she did not go out in Bermuda. She testified she booked the hotel for herself, but when shown a computer print-out from Mr. Pettingill, she agreed she wrote she had booked it for "us" - her and the man she met over the Internet.

She agreed her alleged attacker discovered - by breaking into her computer - that she would be staying in a New York hotel with the man.

She said her attacker ripped off her top and she denied a suggestion from Mr. Pettingill that she had had her clothes ripped off before in her sex life.

Under re-examination from Senior Crown counsel Vinette Graham-Allen, the woman said her Yahoo advert stated she was looking for friends or pen pals.

The trial will continue on Monday.