A man who repeatedly struck his ex-fiancee with a metal bar during a row claimed yesterday he feared for his life.

"I know she would have killed me ... might even have got away with it,'' said Lucas Spence, 62.

Spence told Magistrates' Court that Sharon Davis approached him with a knife at his home after smashing several windows.

"I hit her three times on the hand. This woman wanted to do me in. She just kept coming.

"I hit her on the knee or the leg and she fell down some steps.'' Earlier, however, Davis, concluding her testimony on the second day of the trial, gave a very different version of events.

Stressing she had never possessed a knife, she accused Spence of attacking her from behind.

"I feared for my life. I thought he would beat me to death,'' she said, adding she had picked up a board to defend herself.

Davis, an executive secretary for Bermuda Government, said Spence had hit her about ten times with a metal bar.

Spence, a self-employed painter of West Avenue, Southampton, denies causing grievous bodily harm to Davis on October 7, 1994.

The court has heard Davis spent four days in King Edward VII Memorial Hospital being treated for a broken arm, bruises and cuts.

Since then, arthritis had set into the bone in her neck, Davis told the court.

And she had also experienced ringing in her left ear, and frequent headaches and blurred vision.

Yesterday morning, W.P.c. Nataya DeSilva told how she had gone to Spence's home on October 7 with P.c. Richard Tempest-Mitchell.

When she arrived, she saw Spence standing in the garden some ten yards from Davis.

"At this time Spence was holding a three-foot metal bar in his right hand and a six-inch kitchen or steak knife in his left hand.

"Spence was told by P.c. Tempest-Mitchell to drop the items which he did immediately.'' W.P.c. DeSilva said the bar in Spence's hand was "square-shaped'' and similar to one used on bookshelves.

"I then noticed Davis. She appeared to have a broken left arm as well as an injury to her hand.

"At this time she shouted, or said, `He attacked me. He just attacked me. I want him locked up'.

"I then approached Davis. At this time she informed me of the circumstances surrounding the incident which occurred between her and Spence prior to the Police's arrival.'' P.c. Tempest-Mitchell said the aluminium bar Spence was holding weighed some three or four pounds, and was about three feet long.

He added Spence told him of events leading up to the incident, including a meeting in town.

"He told her he did not want to see her, but she attended his apartment and attempted to gain access, and she attacked him with a knife. He had defended himself with a piece of metal.'' P.c. Tempest-Mitchell added the silver metal bar -- set aside as an exhibit for the trial -- had disappeared.

Sgt. Tracy Adams read out Police statements of interviews with Spence.

In them, Spence said he believed Davis may have broken her arm by punching a window at his home.

Under cross-examination by Spence's lawyer Mr. Peter Farge, Sgt. Adams could throw no light on the disappearance of the metal bar.

In ten years as a Police officer, he had not known a trial exhibit to vanish.

Taking the stand for the first time, Spence said he had decided to break off his relationship with Davis because "she was not doing right''.

"She was staying out all night, leaving me home with her kids. I told her it was not going to work.'' Spence told of a separate incident shortly before his arrest.

He said Davis burst into his bedroom without provocation and started choking him, and then plunged a pair of scissors into his shoulder.

The injury kept him in hospital overnight.

Spence said the stabbing had been on his mind when Davis came to his home on October 7.

"Everything flashed back,'' he said, claiming he picked up a metal bar near his door to protect himself.

He added: "I thought this woman has really gone crazy. Something is wrong with her.'' The case is being heard before Acting Magistrate the Wor. Kenneth Brown, while Ms Charlene Scott appears for the Crown. It resumes tomorrow.