A woman who went on a Tinder date with the alleged killer of backpacker Grace Millane said she was left struggling to breathe and feared she would die during a sexual encounter, a court heard today.
Miss Millane, from Wickford in Essex, was on the New Zealand leg of a round-the-world trip last December when she was strangled in an Auckland hotel room while on a date.
The British graduate had met the alleged killer on the eve of her 22nd birthday, going for drinks with him in bars before returning to the CityLife hotel where he was living.
Another student who dated the same man through Tinder told an Auckland court this morning she also ended up in his hotel room and was pinned down during a sexual encounter.
“He had grabbed my forearms and put all the pressure on my arms so I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t move my arms”, she said.
“I started kicking, trying to indicate I couldn’t breathe. I was kicking violently. He would have felt me fighting.”
The woman, who cannot be identified, said she was “terrified” and pretended to pass out in an attempt to make the 27-year-old New Zealander get off her. She eventually managed to turn her head enough to draw breath, she said.
“This can’t be the way I die”, she said she had thought during the incident.
She claimed the man eventually released her and acted as if nothing was wrong.
“Finally he just sat up. I was gasping and he just said to me, 'Oh, what's wrong?'
“I said 'What do you mean what's wrong?' and he said, accusing and quite cold: 'You don't think I did that on purpose do you?' I think I was in disbelief and shock.”
Jurors heard the woman had met him through the Tinder dating app in March last year, meeting once before reconnecting seven months later.
They went on a second date when the alleged incident happened in November last year, just a month before Miss Millane was killed.
She said they went to the hotel room after the man had suggested he wanted to change out of his suit, drinking alcohol they had bought in a local shop.
Under cross-examination, the woman tearfully insisted that despite how the night ended, she had continued messaging the man for weeks afterwards to avoid him stalking her.
“I didn’t want to aggravate him … I was scared”, she said.
She added that the man had asked for another date on December 1, the day he met Miss Millane, but the woman made excuses and declined.
The alleged killer denies murdering Miss Millane, saying her death was accidental during a bout of rough sex.
Another of the man’s Tinder dates also told the court he had admitted liking “dominating women during sex because it made him feel superior and in control”.
And a third woman said she had been lightly choked by the man during sex, but this was “a preference of mine”.
Miss Millane’s body was found bundled into a suitcase and dumped in a shallow grave in woodland outside Auckland on December 9 last year.
The alleged killer is said to have searched online for ‘rigor mortis’ and ways to dispose of the body, and went on another Tinder date before Miss Millane’s body had been discovered.
The murder trial, which is due to conclude early next month, continues.
New Zealand courts have banned the naming of the man and the country's government has asked international media to respect the order.
