A SOLDIER is on trial accused of attacking a former partner.

Matthew Wickham, a transporter with the British Army, is on trial at Oxford Crown Court charged with assault causing actual bodily harm, intentional strangulation and damaging a knife that belonged to the woman.

The 29-year-old is accused of committing the offences at his former partner’s home in Brize Norton on August 26 last year.

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During the trial on Friday (August 9), the twelve-strong jury heard from Wickham’s partner who said she ‘thought she was going to die’ at the defendant’s hands.

She said she had been a friend’s home in the evening drinking wine and taking cocaine. However, she told a friend she was ‘scared to go home’.

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(Image: Newsquest)

“[I felt] worried and scared that Matt would kick off about me being home 20 minutes later,” she explained.

When returning home, she said her and Wickham had started arguing.

“He really sh**** towards me and really horrible in the way he was speaking to me,” she said. “It was his tone and his voice.

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“I was arguing back. He was shouting at me, calling me a f****** b**** and I don’t remember the rest but it was a lot of shouting from him.”

She said she had called a friend who advised him to ask Wickham to leave the home but she claims the soldier had refused to return her house keys.

“Then he shoved me back,” she said. “It was on my shoulders, it was quite a hard shove, I fell back and almost lost my balance.

“I shoved him back, that’s when he put his hands around my throat. Both [hands] around my throat and his fingers pushed into my windpipe. I found it hard to breathe.”

She said Wickham had then let her ago and she retaliated by slapping him.

“He then strangled me again,” she said. “This time he said, ‘I will suffocate you’. It was really hard. I felt like I couldn’t breathe, I thought I was going to die.”

She told the jury she had then ‘dropped’ to the floor and Wickham had let the room before allegedly shoving her again.

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“He shoved me again and my head hit the radiator in the living room,” she said. “I had a lump on the back of my head.”

The complainant could be heard crying in the dock while giving evidence before asking for a break.

Wickham has denied the offences.

The trial of Wickham, of Portslade, Brighton, continues. It is expected to last two to three days.