A woman claiming she was attacked by her hatchet-wielding partner yesterday said she had always been afraid of his violent streak particularly after hearing him claim he had killed a woman in Australia because she had started seeing someone else.

Jacqueline Fenech described the attack at their house in Zebbug to Magistrate Noel Cuschieri and said: "He was always possessive and I was always a little scared of him, particularly after he told me how he had killed the woman in Australia and disposed of her body."

She testified in the compilation of evidence against Anthony Camilleri, the father of her 13-year-old son, who is pleading not guilty to attempted murder and grievous bodily harm on May 15.

Fenech yesterday told how she arrived home to find the kitchen plunged in darkness and moved to open the curtains only to find a double gypsum wall had been built where the balcony door had been that morning.

She asked Camilleri, 61, why the door had been walled up and he told her that a man was hanging a festoon. Their son Ryan was in the room watching television. She was bending down to plug in her mobile phone charger when the first blow fell.

"I felt the first blow in my back. I saw his raised arm from the corner of my eye. He hit me three times with the hatchet. The pain was incredible. It was unbearable.

"I fell face up on the ground and he knelt down on my stomach and stabbed me in the face with a fork. Blood flew everywhere. The pain was unbearable. My son saw the whole thing.

"I tried to get up but he hit me again. Suddenly he was not there any more and I called out to my son because I could not move."

Fenech said she managed to drag herself to the phone and dialled numbers at random, finally getting through to her sister. But she could not make herself understood.

She then dragged herself to the main door and out onto the pavement and her neighbours called the ambulance and the police. Her son ran out to tell her that her sister was on the phone and she told him not to go back inside the house because she feared that Camilleri was still there.

Fenech said she spent four days in hospital and still suffered from back pain. Doctors had also told her she would have to undergo an eye operation.

Describing her relationship with Camilleri, Fenech said he had always been possessive and the type to go to great lengths.

When he learnt that a woman he had dated was seeing someone else, he took her on a date by the river and forced her to swallow pills prescribed for horses after they had made love. He then threw her body in the river.

Fenech said Camilleri never told her the woman's name or gave her any more details. He left Australia after he was questioned by police and she got the impression that he had regretted telling her about the matter. He eventually threatened to kill her if she told on him.

Fenech said their relationship was marked by threats and violence. He had once broken her nose and belted their five-year-old son because he did not want to eat.

Camilleri used to tell her that if he ever caught her cheating on him, he would kill her, and that if he could not have her, no one else would.

Three days before the incident she noticed that he had fixed three iron bars on the main door and told her she had three days left.

Fenech said she had been paying the house loan since Camilleri resigned from his job as a watchman eight months ago for health reasons.

He used to deposit his invalidity pension in a bank account he had opened for their son and on the day of the attack he had sold their car and deposited the money into the account.

Fenech said that he had phoned her about three times after the attack to ask for forgiveness and to speak to their son.

Under cross-examination, she said she got to know Camilleri because he was her estranged husband's friend and used to look upon him as a father figure.

Earlier, Police Inspector Silvio Valletta explained how he learnt that a Zebbug woman was hospitalised with serious injuries after an argument with her partner on May 15.

The inspector later learnt that Camilleri had gone to the Zebbug police station at about 10 p.m. and told them that he had swallowed 60 pills prescribed for a blood pressure condition and he was taken to hospital.

Inspector Valletta said he questioned Camilleri on July 17 and he told him he had sold his car and deposited the money into his son's bank account. He also remembered putting 60 blood pressure pills into his pocket but did not remember anything else about the day.

The case continues.

Inspector Valletta is prosecuting.

Dr Stefano Filletti is appearing for Camilleri while Dr Ludvic Caruana and Dr Ronald Aquilina are representing Fenech.