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The Victoria man told his girlfriend to turn around and look at him.

When she did, Mathew Legare dropped to the floor and began to cry, saying how sorry he was, his former girlfriend, identified only by the initials M.K., testified last week at Legare’s attempted murder trial in B.C. Supreme Court.

“I looked in the mirror. My eye was huge and swollen. I cried. I had chunks ­missing out of my hair. My throat looked weird. I looked weird,” an ­emotional M.K. testified by video, a support person by her side.

The court heard chilling allegations of domestic violence. M.K. testified that she was strangled, beaten and threatened with being put through a woodchipper on Aug. 12 to 13, 2018, when she and Legare were staying at the home of his grandparents.

Legare, a 29-year-old roofer with fetal alcohol syndrome, has pleaded not guilty to attempted murder, aggravated assault, unlawful confinement and threatening to kill his former fiancée.

M.K. testified that she and Legare had been friends for 15 years. On the evening of Aug. 11, they used crystal meth and slept in until about noon the next day.

They were still in bed when M.K. got a text from a male friend. Legare became upset, got out of bed and said he was going to kill himself, M.K. testified. He left the Colville Road home, walked up a nearby trail and tried to hook a strap to a tree.

“I was chasing after him, ­begging him not to go through with it,” M.K. testified. “Finally, I was so frustrated with going through this all the time, I said ‘OK. Enough. I’m done. I can’t do this anymore.’ I walked away.”

Legare grabbed her by the hair and tried to pull her back to the forest. Two people, who heard her screaming, shouted at him to stop.

Later that day, when police arrived at the home, she told them nothing had happened.

“Why did you tell the officers there was no violence?” asked prosecutor Paul Pearson.

“I was scared to get him in trouble. I was scared what would happen if I tried to leave him. … I’ve had threats every time I tried to leave. It’s never ended up good for me,” she replied.

When police left, Legare and M.K. drove to Esquimalt Lagoon. “That was our favourite place to go when we were upset,” M.K. testified.

But on the way home, M.K.’s phone started going off again. Legare was irritated. He took away her phone, her keys and her makeup and told her to leave, said M.K.

“I told him to give me my keys and my phone. That’s when he pushed me up against the driver’s side window. … He grabbed my bun. He had a knife and he was trying to serrate the back of my hair. He tried to put a cigarette out on me. … He was choking me up against the ­window as well. … I was gasping for air, gagging,” M.K. testified.

“I was petrified. He kept ­yelling at me. … He threatened that he had somebody who would put me through a wood chipper.”

Finally, Legare gave her back her phone and her keys and she drove to Tillicum Mall. “The only thing on my mind was ­getting out of there.”

Around midnight, she phoned Legare and told him she needed to grab her stuff for work the next day. He told her he wasn’t home. She drove to the house. His truck wasn’t there.

“I thought it would be quick, I’ll grab my stuff and leave the key.”

All the lights were off and the door to Legare’s bedroom was shut, she recalled.

“It was as quiet as a mouse in that house. I opened the door and he was waiting for me, standing right behind the door,” she testified.

“What happened next?” asked Pearson.

‘He said: ‘You shouldn’t have [expletive] come back here. He grabbed me, threw me on the bed, hopped on top of me, started punching me in the face, punching me in the ribs. I kept telling him to stop, but it wasn’t until he hit my eye and I felt the bone in my face shatter that I started screaming at him,” M.K. said through tears.

Legare had both hands around her neck, choking her and telling her to shut up.

“I was gasping for air,” she cried. “My whole body started to go numb … and then he was off the bed flicking on the light.”

M.K. asked Legare if he wanted her to leave.

“I could just leave,” she said. “And he said ‘No I’m sorry, I need to keep you here so I can take care of you and make sure you’re okay.’ I was frozen. I was so scared. I was scared to leave. I was scared to stay. I didn’t know what to do. … I was in so much pain. I was terrified.”

The next morning, after Legare looked at her injuries, M.K. walked into the bedroom. He looked at her again and said: “I can’t let you leave. Everybody’s going to know I did this. I have to kill you,” she testified.

Legare wrapped a belt around her neck and pulled it as hard as he could, said M.K. She put two fingers in between the belt and her throat. The belt was digging into her fingers, she recalled.

“I kept pleading with him to stop. I was saying, “I’m not going to tell anyone.’”

Legard was distraught and started crying, M.K. testified. He grabbed his sleeping pills, said he was going to kill himself and took the whole bottle.

“I sat with him until he fell asleep. Then I left.”

The court will hear final ­submissions on Wednesday.

ldickson@timescolonist.com