A woman allegedly held captive inside an underground cave beneath Fort Ricasoli has described feeling like "a trapped mouse, watched over by a cat" throughout her ordeal.

Read: Missing woman found in Kalkara 'cave'

Testifying via video conferencing, Nathalie Williams recalled how on October 30 she received a text message while on her way to work. 

"Hi, it's Audrey," the text message read. "Call me on this number." 

But when she called back, she was shocked to hear her estranged husband Roddy answer the phone, demanding to meet her and threatening to kill her father and kids unless she did so. “You’ll make me a wanted man,” she recalled him saying.

Scared that he would carry out his threats, she agreed to meet him in afternoon after work.

She drove from her workplace in Żejtun to Paola, and then caught a bus to Xgħajra. There,  she met her estranged husband at their once-favourite spot, where they used to take long walks with their dog.

Into the cave

They began arguing, and at one point, Ms Williams said, he pushed her into the water. After helping her out, he began to shove her, telling her repeatedly "Walk! Walk! You’d better not piss me off."

Mr Williams pushed her in the direction of the cave beneath the fortress.

She walked on, she said, believing that his anger would subside. Weighed down by her soaked clothes, she was unable to run away, Ms Williams told the court.

Moreover, she added, she feared that he would turn upon her, beating her as he often did, making her feel that she was to blame for all the wrong in their life.

Upon reaching the fortress, the couple had first entered a narrow tunnel, then as the passage grew darker, Roddy had lit a lighter until they reached a sort of hole, into which she had to kneel down to enter the small, confined space that was pitch dark.

Since there was hardly enough air to breathe, she was afraid she would have an asthma attack. She began to panic. Her clothes were soaked and she was terribly cold. He began to bang on the walls, crying “You are my life, my love. You’d better calm me down.”

She held his hands, but he wanted sex. When she refused, he insisted that he had every right since she was his wife. She told him that sex would not patch things up between them. However, fearing his violence, she did not offer much resistance.

Read: Woman found in cave was thrown down stairs, raped, threatened, court told

“If I were to escape, where would I seek help? I was convinced I would not get out of there alive. I didn’t want to have sex, not that I didn’t love him, but it would have solved nothing. Had I known what he had in mind I would never have agreed to meet him,” the woman explained.

Recalling her life with Roddy, nine-and-a-half years her junior, Ms Williams said that he used to make her believe that no one loved her in the world except him.

“Unless you have me, you’ll have no one in this world,” he'd tell her, reminding her that even her children had distanced themselves from her because they disapproved of their relationship.

After having sex for a first time inside the cave, Mr Williams allegedly took money from her purse and left her in pitch darkness, crying and overcome by a strong urge to sleep.

He returned with a candle, placing pieces of foil bearing traces of a powdery substance against the flame, the woman recalled.

At one time, when she asked him not to smoke in the confined space, he allegedly became very angry, threatening to slit her throat with a glass shard.

Only once did she ask him to let her go, Ms Williams told the court.

Her fear, sense of helplessness and constant urge to sleep kept her from seeking a way out or putting up any resistance to her husband’s sexual advances.

She alleged that Mr Williams raped her four times throughout the whole ordeal.

Moreover, before going out, her husband kept telling her, “I will kill your father and kids and you will be the last to go,” taking with him her mobile, cigarette lighter and candle.

On one occasion, he returned with a suitcase containing a fresh change of clothes, which he ordered her to put on instead of her damp jeans and shirt.

'She loved him dearly'

Under a lengthy cross-examination which went on for hours, it emerged that Ms Williams had loved the accused dearly and had suffered psychological repercussions when she suspected that he was cheating on her.

“Marriage meant a great deal to me," she told the court. "In the long run, it did not work out,” her voice wavering as she recalled how he used to taunt her by telling her he could have any woman he wished.

After the cave ordeal, she had woken up in hospital and spoken to the police, but was terribly confused, so much so that she had allegedly mixed up two incidents which had occurred that same week.

"I spoke the truth, both events occurred," the woman insisted.

Ms Williams denied having sent a message saying "we need to get out of here please, as fast as possible" to Roddy's sister shortly before the cave ordeal, saying her estranged husband knew her Facebook password and used to take possession of her mobile.

“Roddy suffered from mood swings, he was sometimes a gentleman and sometimes really cruel,” Ms Williams said.

She also denied having ever gone out of the cave during the whole ordeal, as alleged by defence counsel.

“Was it true that she had accompanied Roddy out of the cave on a visit to a neighbour?” the defence pressed on.

She strongly denied this, tearfully claiming that the neighbour in question had been one of the causes of her marriage breakdown.

At the start of the hearing, magistrate Claire Stafrace Zammit turned down a request by the prosecution for proceedings to be conducted behind closed doors. However, publication of certain parts of her testimony were blocked by court order.

Inspectors Josric Mifsud and Paula Ciantar prosecuted.
Lawyers Franco Debono, Marion Camilleri and Yanika Vidal were defence counsel.
Lawyers Ludvic Caruana and Janice Borg were parte civile.