Jacob Zuma should know his fate by Monday, May 8. Yesterday, after 22 court days in seven weeks, the rape trial of the former deputy president was adjourned for a week to allow the State and defence to prepare their closing arguments.

Mr Justice Willem van der Merwe said he expected final arguments to take up April 26 and 28 (April 27 is a public holiday) but that he was quite prepared for them to overflow on to May 2 and even May 3 (May 1 is also a public holiday) and that he would then deliver judgment as speedily as possible.

"There has been speculation in the media of a specific date," Judge Van der Merwe said yesterday, smiling. "I obviously cannot tie myself to such a thing, but, as I have said, I will work as fast as possible for everyone's sake."

Judge Van der Merwe has revealed that he has been working on his judgment every day, rising at 3am and coming to court to read the previous day's record.

He told the media and the spectators in court 4E,that "like the professor in My Fair Lady", 'I have grown accustomed to your faces' " and that he would miss them.

The last day of evidence yesterday was taken up by testimony by and cross-examination of psychologist Dr Louise Olivier.

She was called by the defence to rebut the State's psychological evaluation of the complainant, a 31-year-old woman who has accused Zuma of raping her in the guest bedroom of his home on the night of November 2 last year.

Zuma has pleaded not guilty and told the court he and the woman had consensual sex in his bedroom after he gave her a massage with baby oil.

Olivier's core argument was that State witness Dr Merle Friedman's evaluation had been flawed in a number of respects, mainly because Friedman did not seem to have understood the rigorous requirements of forensic psychology - unlike clinical psychology - and had not therefore taken sufficiently into account the complainant's history, had devoted insufficient time to evaluating the complaint, and had not administered a number of basic diagnostic tests.

Olivier, who is well known as the agony aunt in You magazine, submitted a report that focused on Friedman's testimony that Zuma's accuser had not resisted the alleged rape because she had frozen and had been in a dissociative state.

Olivier said that in the literature, only 10% of rape victims had frozen and that there was a difference between freezing and not resisting.

A position of authority, such as had been attributed to Zuma by the State, did not necessarily mean the woman would freeze while being raped.

Literature showed this usually depended more on the rapist's dominance, or level of aggression, she said.

Olivier said the complainant had allegedly been raped or had been the target of rape attempts when she was 13, and that on her own evidence had indicated that she had wriggled free.

This being the case, asked Olivier, why would she, when older and more experienced, freeze rather than struggle?

The woman's ability to remember the finer details of what Zuma had said to her during the alleged rape was not compatible with the theory that she froze and was in a dissociative state, Olivier said.

She said the woman had not locked herself into the room when Zuma left - common behaviour for rape victims. Nor had she showered immediately afterwards.

"I've seen people who have been raped and they sit there and wash themselves for hours, scrubbing and scrubbing and scrubbing," Olivier testified.

She put forward a number of theories to explain the woman's behaviour.

Emotional transference could lead a victim of previous rape to perceive consensual sex as rape afterwards, she told the court, especially a victim with a past of sexual abuse.

There was also a delusional psychological state in which a person could make a claim they believed was valid.

With acknowledgement to Jeremy Gordin and Cape Argus.