DENVER • Taylor Swift was in a combative mood when she testified in a United States court on Thursday over her accusation of a former DJ for sexual assault.

"I'm not going to allow you or your client to say I'm to blame," she told a lawyer representing David Mueller.

"It was a definite grab (of the buttock)... a very long grab," the singer said of the incident at a photo shoot before her Denver concert in 2013.

"He stayed latched on... as I lurched away from him. (His hand) didn't let go. I had never dealt with something like this before."

She rejected a suggestion that she had continued greeting guests for as long as 30 minutes after the alleged assault, as if nothing had happened.

Her mother testified on Wednesday that the singer did not file a police report in a bid to keep the matter out of the public's eye.

Mueller, 55, is suing Swift, 27, alleging that her complaint to his employer got him sacked. On Wednesday, when he was shown a picture taken during the alleged assault, he said: "Someone could have concluded it appeared she was trying to get away from me."

The picture showed him with his hand behind the singer's buttock.

Mr Robert Call, his former boss at radio station Kygo, told the court the photo indicated to him that Mueller's hand was in an inappropriate place.

The DJ denied that the incident had occurred before conceding that it might have, but that any contact was "accidental".

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE