ERROR The continuation portion of this story was omitted from to the Library directory and the actual newspaper. The story was never run again, therefore the way it appears was the way it was published.

A woman broke down in court yesterday when she re-lived the moment she was grabbed from behind, dragged off the street and sexually assaulted.

The 29-year-old accountant, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had to pause to compose herself as she gave a detailed account of her journey home in the early hours of October 14 last year.

The woman, who worked for a major accountancy firm at the time, had been out with colleagues at a business dinner on the night she was attacked.

She caught a cab home with a male friend at about 3 a.m. They stopped at Ice Queen in Paget for takeaway food, before the driver dropped her friend off at home in Warwick.

The woman then continued her journey home to Southampton in the cab.

But minutes later the driver, former Police officer Kenneth Bourne, asked her to get out of the cab because he was upset that she was eating.

He stopped the car at a bus stop on Middle Road, Warwick, where they continued their argument outside of the vehicle.

He wanted her to pay for the journey, while she said she wanted to be taken home, and would not pay otherwise.

The expatriate from England said she had been outside the cab only a few seconds when a man, who she now knows as the accused, walked over to the car from a moped from across the street and tried to intervene in the argument.

She said she could see his face and body clearly as he stood just two feet away and the area was well-lit.

The woman said the cab driver then took a $20 bill from her hand, before getting back in his vehicle and heading back into town.

Tearful, she then began to walk the remaining three miles home.

But a couple of minutes later, the man on the bike approached and offered her a lift.

The woman said she first refused to take the ride, but the man persuaded her.

She eventually climbed on to the back of the bike.

"I got on the bike because it was the only way of getting home,'' she told the court. "I sat on the bike sideways - not astride. I had my hands either side of me on the seat. I didn't want to hold on to him.'' She said she told the accused that she lived near to the Southampton Princess hotel, but became concerned when he started to turn in to Riddell's Bay Road in Southampton.

The woman said she told him that she did not live in that direction, but he did not stop. As he slowed down to take the corner, she jumped off the bike.

Again, she began to walk the rest of the way home along Middle Road.