A woman has told a jury she thought she was going to die when her ex-partner strangled and raped her in Fife.
The unemployed mother, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, claimed she was attacked by Craig Mackay while she was in an abusive relationship with him.
Mackay, 33, is charged with assaulting and raping the woman to her injury and to the danger of her life at an address in the Leven area on an occasion between January 2014 and June 2015.
The charge alleges he repeatedly punched the 32-year-old on the head and body and uttered derogatory remarks, before seizing her neck and compressing it, pinning her to a bed and raping her.
‘I couldn’t breathe’
The woman gave evidence at the High Court in Livingston that she feared she was going to die as the accused strangled her.
She said: “I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t swallow.”
Under cross examination by Mackay’s defence QC Jim Keegan, the woman agreed she had gone to police in January 2019 to report being raped by Mackay in the front bedroom of her then-home.
However, she admitted she may have given the date of the alleged incident as March 14, 2017.
Mackay is also faces three allegations of raping another former partner at another address in the Leven area.
The Crown alleges the first rape happened between April 1 and October 1 2016; the second on 31 March 2017 while she was sleeping and incapable of giving or withholding consent, and the third on 9 April 2017.
Mackay was subject to two court bail orders at the time of the last two alleged rapes.
Mackay denies all the charges and claims the women both consented to sex.
The trial, before Lord Fairley, continues.
