I was paralysed by a maniac when pregnant but my child gave me the

NOBODY knows what stricken mum Abigail Witchalls is going through better than Sally Faulds.

Just like Abigail, Sally was the victim of an unprovoked and vicious attack which left her paralysed.

And just like Abigail, she was pregnant when it happened. Six months after her terrifying ordeal she gave birth to her daughter Lillie-Anne. "She was perfect," Sally says. "She'd come through everything unharmed. I hope above hope that the same thing happens to Abigail and her baby.

"I want to tell her 'Never give up and keep thinking of the baby'. If she can pick out just one good thing a day, she won't be defeated by what's happened to her.

"It doesn't have to be something big - it could be as simple as a bigger smile than she had the day before. You have to look for every small glimmer of hope.

"Lillie-Anne should have given up the fight for life, but she didn't and the feeling when she was born was beyond words. I think she clung on because she's got something to do in life. She's around for a purpose.

"The same with Abigail's baby. If she holds on, and I hope to God she does, her baby will be here for a reason."

Abigail, 26, was stabbed in the neck in a country lane near her home at Little Bookham, Surrey, 11 days ago. It was a year ago this week that Sally's world fell in on her just as suddenly. She was punched and kicked to the ground by two girls outside a pub.

Then the father of one of them got into his Land Rover Freelander and deliberately drove the one-and-a-half-ton vehicle over her.

Michael Downey, 39, was later jailed for 12 years for what the judge called "a vicious and callous act which showed a complete lack of humanity".

As we first told in a moving interview with Sally in February, the policeman's daughter - who knew none of her attackers - was left with head and lung injuries and her spine was so badly crushed she is unlikely to walk again.

Abigail, paralysed after the attacker's blade pierced her spinal cord, is still under police guard in hospital in Tooting, South London. Sally, 32, says that as she lay in hospital for months after her own attack, it was only the thought of her baby that kept her going.

She remembers how she constantly tried to prise open her hands so that when Lillie-Anne arrived she could hold her. "I spent hours clutching the edges of tables and the sides of my bed," she says. "Every time my fingers curled down, I would grab hold of something to straighten them out and get them going again.

"It's the most tedious thing, doing exercises like that, but it worked. Not to be able to have my baby in my arms would have been unthinkable."

As well as the unborn baby she is carrying, Abigail has her 21- month-old son Joseph to live for.

Lillie-Anne was Sally's first baby - and she now realises just how much her own recovery was influenced by the fact she was pregnant."It would have changed my life if they had told me she had died," Sally says. "I know I wouldn't have made it this far. I have a wonderful family behind me, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have tried. It got to the point where I wanted to give up, but I knew I had to eat because the baby needed food. I owe my daughter my life in a very real way."

Lillie-Anne's arrival as a healthy 7lb 4oz without the need for a caesarean, immediately lifted the clouds. "All I could think was how wonderful it was," says Sally. "After what happened the pair of us shouldn't be here."

The road back is a long one. Sally has periods in rehab where they stretch her legs and give her drugs to lessen her muscle spasms.

At the moment she can't envisage a day when she can get out of her wheelchair, but "never say never" is the guiding light by which she has led her life since the attack.

Lillie-Anne is now six months old, and little by little mother and daughter can do more together. Sally can play with her, lay her on the table and change her nappy. But she needs her mum, Linda to help with bathing.

Single mum Sally says Abigail is lucky to have toddler Joseph, her husband Benoit and the rest of her family to support her. "It's very important," Sally says, "that she's not scared to feel down in front of them. Otherwise everybody thinks you're fine all the time." The bond between Sally and Abigail stretches across the miles. Sally would love them to meet.

"In this kind of situation, the only people who know what you are going through are people who have gone through it themselves.

"Your family can pull you through and there will be psychologists to help her, but they can only get so close to how you are feeling.

"My heart goes out to her and if she needs me, I'll be there for her."

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