A NEIGHBOUR heard model Cheryl Maddison screaming as she was stabbed and raped in her Majorca flat but failed to call police, a court heard.
Young mum Laura Pamela said she heard Cheryl’s “anguished” cries but was convinced it was just another drunk British couple having a fight.
Cheryl, from Houghton, was knifed repeatedly in the neck, throat and back after being attacked as she returned home from work in a bar in Magaluf.
Moroccan waiter Mohamed Fadel el Anssari, 31, is alleged to have raped the 25-year-old and stabbed her with a seven-inch kitchen knife before leaving her for dead in May 2008.
Ms Pamela told a Spanish court yesterday: “I was woken up at about 4am. I could hear fighting and shouting in English. I heard a woman screaming. It sounded like a couple having a fight. I might have heard a glass smash.
“My husband said ‘It sounds as if something really bad is happening’.
“The woman sounded anguished. I thought about calling the police but I thought it was just another fight.”
Cheryl, who had moved to the island just six days earlier aged 21, pretended to be dead until her attacker fled. She then managed to crawl out into the street before collapsing in a pool of blood.
Forensic doctor Julio Lopez, who examined her during her two-week stay in hospital told the court her wounds could have been fatal if she had not received urgent medical attention.
Police found the attacker’s bloodstained top dumped in a rubbish bin near Cheryl’s flat. They launched a huge manhunt but shelved the investigation the following summer after failing to make a breakthrough.
It was re-opened when a second British woman suffered a similar attack in Magaluf in 2010.
Fadel, a cocaine addict, was arrested in July 2011 after a lengthy undercover police operation.
DNA found on a discarded cigarette matched that found on the bedsheets at Cheryl’s apartment. The court was told it also matched traces of genetic material found on the bloodied shirt discarded near the scene of the crime.
Tests proved beyond any doubt the DNA on the shirt and bedsheets belonged to Fadel, a Civil Guard detective told the panel of three judges at the Provincial Court in Palma.
The court heard Fadel had been diagnosed as suffering from psychotic and manic episodes two months before the attack and was prescribed mood-stabilising drugs.
But Spanish doctors who examined him in jail after his arrest said he did not show signs of suffering from mental illness.
Cheryl sat in the public gallery to watch the second day of the trial yesterday with her boyfriend Kaine MacDonald, 21.
The court has heard he confessed to police after his arrest, telling detectives: “I am an evil man”.
He refused to answer questions about the attack in court and his defence lawyer is calling for his acquittal.
The trial is expected to end today.