A man accused of murdering a Co Wicklow woman two years ago told a jury yesterday he had no recollection of stabbing her 23 times.
Christopher Newman, owner of a Dublin alternative therapies clinic, said: "I just lost my brain" during what he described as a "struggle" over a knife with Georgina Eager (28).
Rejecting suggestions that he had tried to kill her, Mr Newman said: "Killing is not in dictionary. You don't kill people you love."
He claimed Ms Eager had attacked him with the knife with "ferocious violence" in her flat on May 22nd, 2003. While he said he "did not really think she would stab me", the pair had become locked in a struggle over the knife when suddenly "I toppled her".
The court heard Ms Eager had suffered 23 stab wounds, including one to the side of her neck in which an artery was severed.
Asked by defence counsel Andrew Smiler how many wounds he recalled inflicting, Mr Newman said: "I just remember the struggle . . . I just lost my brain, like someone in a hurricane. That is all I can remember."
He said he was frightened and lost consciousness. Asked did he want to kill her, Mr Newman replied: "In my whole life I have not physically fought with anyone . . . If you give me one blow I will go unconscious. I am that fragile." He described as "immoral" a suggestion in evidence that he had deliberately severed Ms Eager's spinal cord.
Mr Newman (63), who practised under the name of "Prof Saph Dean", is being tried at the Inner London Crown Court under legislation which allows him to stand trial in Britain for an offence allegedly committed in another jurisdiction.
The Indian-born British national, who claimed yesterday to have had a sexual relationship with Ms Eager before her death, has pleaded not guilty to her murder.
Taking the stand for the second day, he described an argument which he had with the woman the night before she died. He said he had been urging her to take a break from his clinic, where she worked, as she was becoming "unstable". A video was shown to the court yesterday of Ms Eager massaging the body of a naked client who had an erection during the massage. Mr Newman said: "This is not massage. I feel really ill . . . I don't know what she is doing." He said matters came to a head on May 21st when "I told her she must leave the clinic . . . She must leave because she was affecting me". But Mr Newman said he did not want Ms Eager to drive to her parents' home straight after the argument as she was "not in control". He said he had persuaded her to return to the clinic and he believed she would travel to Co Wicklow later that night.
He said he was surprised to see Ms Eager's car still outside the clinic, where her flat was, the following morning. When he called in to see her he said he told her she looked "pretty" and he took off all his clothes. "I lie down and said, 'You look very pretty. Are you not going to love me before you go? I just wanted to make her smile."
He said she replied that she had spent the night with her former boyfriend, and then taunted Mr Newman, saying he could not get an erection without Viagra. He said he began calling her names and that her mood changed when he threatened to call her mother and show her the massage video.
As he reached for the phone, she threw a hammer at him. When he went for the phone again she attacked him with the knife, he claimed. Mr Newman cried and wailed in the box as he recalled the details of the incident.