Slashed

Mother-of-two Manoosh Shoai cannot bear to look at her injuries in the mirror.

She is under 24-hour guard and has a panic alarm strapped to her wrist after the attack just yards from her front door.

The masked thug stabbed her seven times. A wound a centimetre deep and 17cm long stretched the length of her face. A knife wound to her buttocks was 15cm deep.

Mrs Shoai, 55, said: "He came from the side of my house and I thought it was a joke. Then I saw the knife because he was standing holding it up looking at me like in a film as he walked towards me.

"He pulled some kind of pepper spray out and sprayed it in my face and I couldn't see anything. That was when he put the knife in my face from my forehead to my chin. The only thing I managed to do was hold his hand with the knife. By that time I was on the floor and he was sitting on top of me.

"He kept coming back and cutting me and he was very strong. He put the knife in my face three times and in my head three times.

"He stabbed my buttocks, putting the knife in so deep it damaged the bone. He put all the knife in. I am so lucky to be alive. I was saved by God.

"I picked up my mobile and tried to phone the police but I couldn't speak because the side of my face was open and the air was coming out of that instead of my mouth."

She finally managed to alerted her husband, Ali, 56, her son, Arash John, 24, and a friend who were inside the house in Goring.

They rushed outside and found Mrs Shoai covered in blood from her wounds.

The attacker fled into nearby woodland.

Sobbing into her handkerchief, she said: "Every time I shut my eyes I see what happened. I would not dare go out now. I can't even go to the toilet next to the bedroom because I freeze with the thought of what happened and him appearing in those few seconds. I can't see myself going outside the house ever again."

Mrs Shoai's family has offered a £10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the attacker who targeted his victim in the drive of her home as she returned from work on November 15, at 11.30pm.

Mrs Shoai, who was in the Iranian Olympic swimming team when she was 18, said: "When my husband and son saw me, I got up because I was worried about what they would think of the state I was in. My husband had a stroke just nine months ago."

She was taken to Worthing Hospital, then transferred to Chelsea Hospital in London where she underwent three-and-a-half hours of plastic surgery.

Mrs Shoai, who is director of a nursing home chain, will have to undergo a further operation to repair a facial nerve that was severed, leaving her with no feeling down one side and an inability to move her facial muscles. Mrs Shoai's friend and colleague, Moira Cleary, said: "To realise someone so kind and gentle has been attacked in such a frenzied way is terrifying."

Police are checking CCTV footage from the property and nearby shops.

DS Colin Smith of Worthing CID said: "We are satisfied it was an attack against her as a specific person, not a speculative attack on anybody who was walking past. It was a planned attack and he was sitting there waiting for her to come home. He was out to disfigure her."

Police were initially treating the incident as racist but have since widened their lines of inquiry.

A 51-year-old man was arrested the day after the attack and released on police bail.

Anyone with information should ring DS Smith at Worthing CID on 0845 60 70 999.