A MODEL from the North-East has given evidence at the trial of a man accused of raping and stabbing her with a knife.

Cheryl Maddison, 25, from Murton, County Durham, has returned to the Spanish holiday island of Majorca to testify against the 31-year-old Moroccan man.

After working as a barmaid she was followed home at 4am and forced inside her apartment by her attacker, the court in Palma heard.

Miss Maddison, who has waived her right to anonymity, said: “He followed me up the stairs. He punched me and dragged me inside. He said, ‘Shhh... or I kill you’,” she said.

“I bit and scratched him but then I passed out. When I woke up I was by myself in the bedroom. I was confused and crying.

“There was blood coming out my chest. That’s when he entered the room. He put a knife in my neck. It went right into my neck. I thought he wanted me to die.

“My breathing was making gargling sounds because he had stabbed me in the lung so I held my breath so he thought I wasn’t breathing any more. I pretended to be dead. It felt like forever.”

Miss Maddison she crawled out of her flat naked and collapsed in a pool of blood outside a nearby kebab shop.

She needed surgery for stab wounds to her neck, throat, chest and back and spent two weeks in hospital before being allowed home.

She had only arrived at the resort six days before the attack in May 2008.

The case was reopened in 2010 when a second British woman was assaulted.

Cocaine addict Mohamed Fadel el Anssari, who worked as a waiter, was arrested in July 2011 after detectives got his DNA off a cigarette butt.

He denies attempted murder and rape.

The trial continues.