A 30-year-old woman today told the Old Bailey how she survived a brutal knife attack while studying in Australia nearly 10 years ago.

Giving evidence from behind a screen during Mark Dixie's trial the Thai woman told how she had been studying economics when she was attacked.

The 37-year-old pub chef, who had been working in Perth at the time of the assault, is accused of murdering Sally Anne Bowman.

He denies he murdered the 18-year-old model but admits he had sex with her corpse in Blenheim Crescent on September 25, 2005.

The witness told the court how she had been getting ready for bed at a friend's house on June 21, 1998, when a man with a stocking over his head climbed through the window.

She tried to escape out of a window in a bedroom but it was locked.

The intruder, who was roughly 6ft, white, and wearing blue jeans, came into the room armed with a knife.

He demanded money from the terrified woman and then told her to take her top off when she said she did not have any.

She started to scream and kicked her attacker, and he stabbed her with a knife.

"He stabbed me with me knife. I think he tried to turn me around and then started stabbing me. I had my back to him," she said.

She told the court: "I think he threw me on the floor as well before he stabbed me."

The woman was stabbed around eight times and passed out during the attack.

When she woke up she found her knickers round her knees.

She told the court she thought her attacker had sex with her.

She was able to call out the window to a passerby and rang her friend on a mobile phone.

The court also heard a statement from Travis Yates who had come to the victim's aid.

In a statement he said: "I heard her calling out help me'. I saw that she was covered in blood. She said I have been raped'. She kept saying it hurts, it hurts."

The court heard the woman's attacker took her handbag which had her cosmetics and house keys in.

A trauma team doctor, Dr Wakeman, who examined the victim said she had eight stab wounds to the jaw, neck, shoulders and back which were serious and life-threatening.

She had also lost about half her circulating blood and suffered a collapsed lung.

Forensic scientist Julie-Ann Cornelius told the court that DNA tests carried out on the semen found in the victim's knickers matched Dixie.

The court heard how the victim's boyfriend had stolen between $500 and $1,000 from her bank account in December 1997.

Dixie's defence asked the victim if she had become a prostitute because she was short on cash, which she denied.

The trial continues.