AN ALLEGED sex attack victim's husband told a court his wife could hardly speak when she returned home with a swollen lip claiming she had been raped."I asked her why she was late, what was wrong.

AN ALLEGED sex attack victim's husband told a court his wife could hardly speak when she returned home with a swollen lip claiming she had been raped.

"I asked her why she was late, what was wrong. She pointed to him (the defendant) and said, 'ask him'," the husband told Ipswich Crown Court.

He said Jamie Garnham, 30, was standing on the pavement near the 49-year-old woman's home in the early hours of June 29. The husband said: "She told me she had been raped. Her coat had grass on it and she had dirt across her forehead. She could not talk properly, she was completely shocked and stressed out."

He added that Garnham had left the area, but a few minutes later he and his daughter had found and confronted Garnham but he had run away.

During cross examination the husband said Garnham had allegedly followed his wife before attacking her on Maidenhall Green. In his witness statement taken nearer the time of the incident, he told police Garnham had walked his wife home.

The court also heard from a 16-year-old girl, who had been at Maidenhall Green at the time of the incident. The girl told police she saw two people, one on top of the other laying on the grass behind a bus stop.

She said she then heard a scream "she shouted help in a really loud screech, she shouted only once."

Garnham, of Alamein Way, Bradwell, Great Yarmouth denied attempted rape and said the woman had consented to sex on Maidenhall Green.

The court heard the woman had been walking home alone from the Orwell Mariner Pub in Vernon Street after consuming a quarter of a bottle of whiskey and two and a half pints of lager when Garnham offered to walk her home.

He allegedly pushed her onto her back on the grass removed her jeans and underwear and tried to rape her.

The trial continues.