A WOMAN told a jury she fled in shock and terror from a York hospital after being raped by psychiatrist Michael Haslam.

She alleged she was pursued through Clifton Hospital by the doctor to her car, feeling "absolutely terrified" and even fearing for her life.

She then drove home, grabbed a washing-up bowl and drove to Strensall Common, where she cut a wrist with a razor blade, losing a pint of blood, she told Leeds Crown Court. "I just wanted to die," she said. "I felt utterly destroyed."

Later, under cross examination, she told how she had also been assaulted three times when she was younger. She said she had been indecently assaulted by her boss when she was 16, and later raped on the Paris Underground by two men. She had also been hit on the head with a hammer in a separate incident in the French capital.

Tom Bayliss QC, defending Haslam, suggested she had heard voices and suffered from hallucinatory psychiatric problems, believing on one occasion she was Gandhi.

She confirmed she had suffered from hallucinations at one time, before the alleged incidents involving Haslam, but said they had been caused by the medication she was on at the time.

The woman, now in her 40s, said that the Clifton rape happened in 1988 in a small dusty room high in the psychiatric hospital, now closed down.

Haslam had invited her there to undergo experimental research, which he had said involved photographing the aura of a depressed person and capturing it on film.

But in the room she saw what appeared to be a small photocopier and Haslam photocopied her hand.

She said he had locked the door and it appeared to her she was in a trap. "My heart started pounding."

She said Haslam forced her to the floor. "I was struggling to get out of his grip. It was a violent struggle," she said.

He then raped her briefly. His face was sweaty and very flushed, and he was wearing "some kind of hairpiece that came adrift."

The woman also alleged that on an earlier occasion in 1988, she had fallen unconscious after being given carbon dioxide to breathe at Bootham Park Hospital by Haslam and had then come round to find him lying spread-eagled on her. She managed to struggle out from under him.

She said he told her the carbon dioxide therapy was being pioneered by the Russians and could help ease tension. She said she never went back for the treatment again.

She alleged that on an earlier occasion, she had gone to Haslam's private consulting rooms, where he had produced sex toys and vibrators. She said she walked straight out and never came back.

Haslam, 69, of Crayke, near Easingwold, now retired, denies indecently assaulting and raping the woman, and also pleads not guilty to two indecent assaults on a second woman and one indecent assault against a third.

The trial continues today.

Updated: 10:55 Thursday, November 20, 2003