THE man accused of murdering backpacker Grace Millane tried to suffocate another Tinder date as she performed a sex act on him, a court has heard.

The woman told the murder trial she thought she was going to die as the 27-year-old defendant began to suffocate her in November last year.

The student, whose identity is protected, told Auckland High Court in New Zealand: “I was terrified. I thought, ‘This can’t be the way that I die’.”

She told the court he took her to the apartment where Grace would die just a month later and she started to perform a sex act on him.

The woman claimed the defendant then held down her arms while suffocating her with his body weight.

She said: “I couldn’t breathe. He sat down so that he wasn’t supporting any of his body weight.

"He had grabbed my arms too I couldn’t move them.

"I started kicking to indicate I couldn’t breathe. He just sat there, he didn’t move at all.

"I decided to lie completely still and he would realise something was wrong. My arms were flopping. I acted like I passed out and he still didn’t get off.

"There were so many thoughts running through my mind. I thought this can’t be the way that I die."

DEFENDANT 'CHOKED WAITRESS DURING SEX'

The court had previously heard the defendant choked a waitress during rough sex just days before Grace's death.

The defendant went on a Tinder date with the woman nine days before the 22-year-old Brit was killed.

She said: “We asked each other what we preferred during sex and so I did mention that I liked rough sex and also choking.

“He did say that he liked rough sex as well but I don’t remember if he said anything about choking.”

Questioned by prosecutor Brian Dickey, she said she had gone to the man’s apartment at 7pm on November 22 to meet him for the first time.

She bought a bottle of rum and the man met her in the lobby.

“It was a nice place,” she said. “We went up to his room and we started talking to each other. I had about four glasses of rum and coke and he drank about four bottles of Heineken.

“After he went to bathroom he kissed me and from there it went to the bed.”

During sex, she said, “he did choke me a bit because that’s a preference of mine, just one hand around my neck.

“It was fine, it was consensual. My breath was a bit restricted but it was something that gave me pleasure.

“It wasn’t too hard that I gasping for air but it wasn’t so soft that I wouldn’t be able to feel it. It was the right pressure

“I didn’t have to push him off me. He let me go when I reached…”

The woman said after ordering in pizza and sharing it she had left the man asleep but tried to contact him again after realising she had left her glasses behind.

But the alleged killer didn’t return them and she didn’t see him again until he walked into the bar where she worked on the night of December 1, this time with Grace, who he had also met through Tinder.

“He came in with a young lady and they walked across the bar to go to a table,” she told the court.

“She looked European. She was wearing a black dress with shoulder length hair.”

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As he was paying for drinks, the woman told him how frustrating it was not to have to her glasses.

Under cross-examination, the woman said when she first spoke to police about the date, which she described as “just a hook-up”, she had not mentioned the choking because she “just forgot”.

The man denies murder and the trial continues.

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