BRITAIN: A young mother left paralysed after being stabbed in the neck has told police the man who attacked her in a quiet country lane first held a knife to the throat of her young son.
Abigail Witchalls (26) was left paralysed from the neck down after the attack last Wednesday while walking 21-month-old Joseph home in a buggy in Little Bookham, Surrey.
Police began interviewing her in hospital on Monday after doctors said she had recovered sufficiently. Communicating only by blinking and mouthing words, she spent six hours with two female officers and members of her family, detailing for the first time the attack and her assailant.
She said she had first noticed her attacker when he drove past her along the lane in a blue four-door estate car, Det Supt Adrian Harper said yesterday.
She became nervous after making eye-contact with him and hurried away.
But he came back in his car and caught up with her after she was unable, in her panic, to open a gate at the end of the lane. She heard the man say: "You have dropped your purse," and, turning round, saw the man had grabbed hold of Joseph and was holding a knife to his throat.
"He then grabbed her hair, pulled her down towards the ground and as he did so, stabbed her once in the back of the neck with the knife," said Supt Harper. The man then pushed the buggy with her son still in it on top of her and ran off. Her son was unharmed.
Witchalls described the attacker as 20-35 years old, between 1.8m and 2m, (5ft 10in and 6ft 4in) tall, with short scruffy hair, a long thin pale face, with black bags under his eyes and prominent cheekbones. He was wearing looped silver earrings, spoke with a Cockney or southern accent in a deep voice, and appeared to be under the influence of either drink or drugs.
Police appealed for anyone who recognised the description of the man to contact them urgently.
"Anyone who is prepared to threaten a young child and try to kill his mother in front of him is clearly capable of anything," said Supt Harper.