FREDERICTON - A man convicted of sexually assaulting a woman who was held captive in a one-room basement apartment in Moncton, N.B., for almost a month argued Tuesday for the right to appeal his conviction and sentence.

Romeo Cormier represented himself before three justices of the New Brunswick Court of Appeal in Fredericton, telling the panel that the trial judge erred when describing the crime he was found to have committed as "horrendous."

The Crown dismissed his arguments, saying Cormier's lawyers provided him with a competent defence and the trial judge took into account all the appropriate factors when he sentenced the 64-year-old man to 18 years in prison.

"I'm not expecting any magic or miracles here today," Cormier told the panel. "I just want the law applied properly here in my case."

The court reserved its decision on Cormier's application for leave to appeal. A written ruling is expected in the next three to six months.

Cormier was sentenced last August after a jury found him guilty of kidnapping, forcible confinement, sexual assault, assault with a weapon, robbery and uttering death threats.

His victim -- whose identity is protected by a publication ban -- testified that Cormier grabbed her at knifepoint on the night of Feb. 26, 2010, outside the shopping mall in Moncton where she worked.

The woman was 55 at the time. She told Cormier's trial that her life had been consumed by what happened to her.

Cormier told the Court of Appeal that his defence lawyers didn't adequately handle jury selection and allowed people to serve as jurors who had met him in Moncton-area bars.

He also said his lawyers didn't ask many of the questions he wanted posed to witnesses.

"They did not bring up things they should have brought up," Cormier said.

He described his 18-year sentence as "harsh and unusual punishment in a case of he said, she said."

Cormier waved his arms as he read from a pile of notes, and made comments about individual jurors, witnesses and the lawyers in the trial. Justice Margaret Larlee told Cormier to deal with points of law rather than the various people involved in his case.

He told the appeal court that he objected to the conduct of Judge Zoel Dionne of the Court of Queen's Bench during his trial, arguing that Dionne gave the impression to the jury that he should not be believed.

Cormier argued that Dionne erred when he used the word "horrendous" to describe the crimes he was convicted of committing. He said the word should be used for crimes involving children, torture or multiple murders.

"The word did not need to be used and he did not need to say it four times," Cormier said.

But Crown attorney Cameron Gunn said he had no problem with the judge's use of the word.

"I don't know how else you would describe 26 days of captivity that included repeated sexual assault," Gunn said.

Cormier said the trial judge also should not have allowed a re-enactment video to have been entered into evidence because it wasn't accurate. He said the woman testified that she was abducted at night and was walked to the apartment where she was held, yet the video was shot in daylight from a moving vehicle.

During the trial, the woman said Cormier threatened to kill her, and she feared him so much that she didn't dare grab one of the knives in his basement apartment or attempt to flee because she felt it would further jeopardize her life.

She was able to escape on March 24, 2010, when Cormier went out to a food bank.

Cormier told the trial that the woman wanted to be with him and that she had enlisted him to kill her husband, a claim she rejected when recalled by the Crown to rebut Cormier's testimony.

On Tuesday, Cormier maintained his innocence, noting that he didn't appear on any of the videos from surveillance cameras near the mall that were shown during his trial.

"I was not on the video," he said. "I will argue that all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada."