Manassas, Tuesday

A WOMAN who cut off her husband's penis with a kitchen knife saw his

body as an ''instrument of torture'', a psychiatrist told a Virginia

court today.

She said Lorena Bobbitt was a battered wife and not in control of her

actions when she attacked husband John Wayne Bobbitt last June.

Dr Susan Feister, an expert witness for the defence, said that Mrs

Bobbitt was a typical battered woman who had been repeatedly beaten,

raped, and verbally abused.

''Under the experience of these overwhelming emotions she attacked the

weapon which was the instrument of her torture -- that is her husband's

penis,'' the psychiatrist said.

''I don't believe she had control over her actions at that time.''

Mrs Bobbitt, a 24-year-old manicurist born in Ecuador, is charged with

malicious wounding. If convicted she could be jailed for 20 years.

The psychiatrist, called to back the defence claim that Mrs Bobbitt

acted in a moment of temporary insanity, said: ''She had an acute

deterioration of the mental state and became psychotic.''

She went on: ''She suffered from major depressive disorder, she

suffered from post traumatic stress disorder and she suffered from an

anxiety disorder.''

On Friday Mrs Bobbittt tearfully described the night of the attack,

claiming she had been raped by her 26-year-old husband after he came

home from a night of drinking.

She remembered grabbing a kitchen knife but said she did not actually

remember cutting off his penis.

Although she later told police what had happened Dr Feister said that

she had ''reconstructed'' the events only after discovering the severed

penis in her hand as she fled in her car.

Mrs Bobbitt has told how she threw it out of the car window when she

realised she still had it. Police later found it and it was reattached

by doctors.

Bobbitt was acquitted of marital rape two months ago in the same court

and has denied he ever struck his wife.--Reuter.