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Search forEXCLUSIVE: Crawley mum attacked by machete-wielding maniac
Wednesday, November 19, 2008, 07:00
Terrified Dawn Higgins, 34, said she is constantly "looking over her shoulder" since the attack.
The full-time mum, of Chiltern Close, West Green, found the attacker at the end of her bed and had to be rescued by her naked lover.
Miss Higgins was speaking after her attacker, Kevin Denny was jailed for 10 months for the assault, which took place in May this year.
Speaking exclusively to the News, the mother-of-three says her children have been left traumatised by the ordeal.
She said: "My daughter Lucy who is 13 has collapsed over all of it and my five-year-old Brandon has taken knives from the kitchen.
"We found them under his bed, and when we asked him about it he just said 'I'm scared the bad man is going to come and get my mummy'."
Both Miss Higgins and Denny were drinking in the Rose and Crown, West Green, on the evening of the attack. After Miss Higgins left for home, Denny also came to her house uninvited.
It was later when Miss Higgins was in bed, however, that she got her biggest shock.
She said: "I was in bed with my partner and I didn't even know he (Denny) was still in my house, let alone with a knife around my children.
"I heard my daughter Lucy, who is 13, telling someone not to go upstairs, but then the door opened and Denny was standing there.
"He walked in with his hood up and sat at the end of the bed, he was laughing.
"I just saw the huge machete, it was like a samurai sword. It was terrifying.
"I just remember thinking 'oh my god what is going on'."
A fight then broke out between Miss Higgins's naked partner and Denny, who still had the sword.
She said: "There was blood everywhere. They were wrestling on the bed and he kept swinging the knife at me.
"I had to shield myself with my arm, and I've got scars now.
"I was trying to get the handle off him, at one point the handle hit my head. I just kept thinking that could have been the blade."
Denny then left after he was thrown down the stairs, but the memories still haunt the family.
It was said in court that Miss Higgins was previously in a relationship with Denny, something which she strongly denies.
She said: "I have never been in a relationship with him. That is completely untrue, he is weird.
"I do not even know him, I just know of him."
FRIGHTENING ORDEAL: Dawn found a machete-wielding maniac at the end of her bed
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