LOOKING over her shoulder has become a way of life for Michelle Quayle. The 25-year-old mum gets her father to drive her to the Echo offices for our interview, and her partner will pick her up afterwards.

Although David Dent - the man who took away her sense of security by plunging a kitchen knife into her twice as she walked down the street - has been in custody since the attack in May, Michelle is still too afraid to go out on her own.

But, as she looks forward to the birth of the baby who survived the stabbing, she says she is determined to think positively.

She lifts up her top to show me the scar from the attack - a long slash, red and angry against the white skin of her swollen stomach, which she describes to her two-year-old daughter Megan as her "shark bite".

"I used to look at it and be really depressed," says Michelle.

"But my boyfriend said: 'Every time you look at it, you should be proud of it because you managed to get through it all.'

"It's like I've beaten him (Dent), I've become stronger."

Michelle left Dent in January, and began seeing another man. Michelle soon fell pregnant.

She says Dent wanted her back, and when he did not get his own way, he viciously attacked her.

On May 24, as Michelle was walking along St Clement's Road towards her work as an electronic engineer, she heard a noise behind her and turned to see her ex.

"I looked over my shoulder and he was running behind me with a knife," she says.

"There was a struggle and I got the knife off him and threw it, and then I let my guard down, because you don't expect someone to be carrying more than one knife.

"He must have had another knife up his sleeve, it was a great big meat knife, and I just froze.

"He did the first cut, on my arm, and pulled it out, and kind of thought about doing it again.

"The look in his eyes was like, 'Well, I'm here now, I may as well finish it off'."

Then Dent stabbed her again, this time across the top of her stomach and ran off.

"I ran up the drive shouting 'Help me, help me, he's stabbed me', but there was nobody there and the next-door neighbours came out."

Michelle says she is particularly thankful to the neighbours, who called the police and ambulance while she collapsed, slumped and bleeding, to the ground.

As armed guards collected the rest of the family, and swarms of officers searched Poole for Dent, Michelle was rushed to surgery at Poole hospital, fighting for her life and that of her unborn child.

"We're so grateful the baby is still alive," she says.

"They told us if the operation was more than 25 minutes long, the baby probably wouldn't survive, and I was operated on for six-and-a-half hours.

"Even now, when the baby's growing, the womb could rupture at any time, which means they would have to do a Caesarean-section, so the hospital still has to keep a close eye on me."

But the scars are beginning to heal, and Michelle is looking forward to a different life with her new partner and children.

"Hopefully, if the baby goes full term, it will be born on Christmas Day," she says.

"It will put an end to this year."

First published: September 11