Moyston, in her opening address to the jurors, stated how the crown would prove to the court that the accused forced the victim, his ex-girlfriend whom he had met at the roadside, into an abandoned house. There, he placed a machete to her throat and raped her. He then kept her there until the following morning, after which she managed to escape and went to report the matter to the police, concluded Moyston.

The prosecutor then called her first witness to the stand – the victim (she was not asked her age on the stand), a mother of 5, who, sobbing, recalled her horrifying experience to the court.

At the time of the incident, the victim said that she had ended her relationship with Flowers some weeks ago. The relationship was rocky and she had taken up a new job away from the city so that he could not reach her, because she really wanted to get out of the relationship for good, she told the court.

The victim said that on April 29, 2004, at about 6:30 p.m., she had gone to visit her mother and children, who live in Ladyville, after returning home from her new job, where she had been for almost three months

While walking back to take a bus into the city, where she lives, she met her ex-boyfriend at the junction of Lords Bank, Ladyville, where it joins with Egbert Quilter Avenue.

According to the victim, Flowers had first passed her on the road, but when he recognized that it was her, he turned his bicycle around and approached her from behind. He pulled her hand. He began to threaten her, she recalled, saying to her that if she didn?t listen to what he had to say, he would take the handle of his bike and wrap it around her neck and throw her into the bushes, and leave her there.

At this moment, she said she became afraid of him, and became scared for her life.

She was so scared, she said, that when she saw her 8-year-old son coming up the street, she yelled to him to go back home, because Flowers told her to make sure he went back home, or he will hurt him, too. (The son was not for Flowers.)

Moments later, while he had her at the corner of the road, her sister passed by and Flowers told her not to say a word to her, and she did not. Her sister just passed them by.

They were at the roadside for over 30 minutes. Flowers said he wanted her to go to his home so they could talk, but she told him they had nothing to talk about. He insisted, however, that she go with him, but she refused. He then grabbed her by the hand and forced her to go with him into the bushes. He took her to an upstairs wooden house located about a quarter mile from the roadside, where they were.

There, the victim alleges that when she sat on the front step, Flowers pulled her inside the house. She tried to escape, but when she ran towards a back entrance, there were no steps there, she recalled. While inside the house, which had no electricity, Flowers lit a candle and then suddenly, she saw him holding a machete in his hands. He placed the machete to her throat and told her that he would cut out her heart and drink her blood, then cut her to pieces, and no one would find her, she said.

He then told her to take off her clothes, but she refused, and a struggle ensued between them. In the end, however, he managed to take off her pants, she recalled.

During the struggle, she ended up on the floor in a corner of the room on some sheets that were there, and it was after she could fight no more, said the mother, that he raped her.

After raping her, she said that he kept the machete next to him, and she was afraid, so she did not try to escape.

Unable to sleep, she said she prayed for morning to come. When daylight came, Flowers, who did not sleep all night, got up from next to her where they were on the floor. He began acting strange and weird. He began to bang on the wall with the machete, acting in an outraged manner, she recalled.

He then jumped through the back door, where there were no steps.

It was at this moment that she saw an opportunity to escape, and ran through the front door, but by the time she got to the gate, he was standing in front of her. He grabbed her hand, and she pulled it away. He did not try to stop her from leaving at this point, she said. She said she then went straight to the police station that morning, around 7:00, and reported the incident.

The prosecution had called two other witnesses to the stand, Woman Police Constable Sherlene Thomas, the investigating officer at the time, who had escorted the mother to the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital; and the forensic analyst, George Gomez, who had analyzed the vaginal swab from the victim.

By the end of this morning, the prosecutor ended her case and the accused took the stand and testified under oath.

Flowers told the court that he and the victim had had consensual sex, as they had made an agreement that day. He said that on that day, he met a friend who told him ?something,? and he met with the victim, who, he said, is his girlfriend.

He denied raping her, and told the court that she willingly had sex with him at the house, which is a home he was moving into at the time.

He claimed that the victim had been staying there with him for three weeks, and that the agreement was that on that night, they would have sex and he would take her to the bus stop afterwards.

He told the court, however, that he did not want her to leave after they had sex, so he continued talking with her so she could not leave. He said that the reason why he did not want her to leave was because he was too tired to walk her to the bus stop.

He did not deny trying to keep her there, but said he did not force her to have sex. He claimed that earlier that night while they were at the house, they had talked about having sex, and that she had agreed.

He said that the following day when he got up, he went outside in the yard to capture two loose horses, and when he turned his back, he saw his girlfriend going through the door.

He went behind her and hugged her and said goodbye to her, then she left and he went inside the house to get ready to go to work.

During cross-examination, Flowers had asked the victim how could she say that he told her he would choke her with his bicycle handle. He told the court that that was an impossible act for him to try to do, because he would have needed tools to take his bicycle apart.

He had also asked her about how could he have dragged her into the house, and the house does not even have a complete verandah. This again, he claimed, would have been impossible for him to do given the condition of the house.

The forensic analyst, Gomez, who examined the vaginal swab, told the court that a large amount of seminal fluid was detected on the swab, and in his conclusion, explained to the court that semen was present.

But there was no semen taken from the accused. In Belize, there is no DNA testing technology available, hence no way that they could match the semen found inside the victim with that of Flowers to tell whether it was indeed his sperm that was found inside her.

Tomorrow at 9:30 a.m., the case will resume, and Flowers is scheduled to call about three witnesses to the stand on his behalf.