A woman suffered these horrific injuries after she says she was assaulted for telling a man to stop groping her at the Notting Hill Carnival.

Mary Brandon posted an image of her bruised and bloodied face online alongside a message in which she said a man "took a swing at me and punched me in the face" when she told him to leave her alone.

In a defiant message which has been shared thousands of times since it was posted, she said she spent nine hours in A&E after the attack on Monday - but thanked "incredible" NHS staff who treated her at the scene.

"At Notting Hill Carnival yesterday a man in the crowd grabbed my arse," she wrote. "When I told him not to he did it again.

"I pushed him away, exercising my right to tell a man to stop touching my body without my permission, so he took a swing at me and punched me in the face.

"Carnival is supposed to be about community and good vibes. I wanted to have a good time but instead I spent 9 hours in A&E because of this coward. I’m so pissed off that this man thought it was OK to hit me because I said no to him."

Ms Brandon, said women "should be able to leave the house without fear of being sexually assaulted".

Anyone who thinks it is acceptable to be violent towards women should stay away from Carnival next year, she wrote on her publicly accessible Facebook page.

She said: "Maybe it’d be safer to just ignore it when someone invades your space and body.

"But I can honestly say I will always stand up to someone who thinks they can get away with this behaviour and I’d take a punch again from this looser or any other looser [sic] who thinks it’s OK to treat women like this."

She had just arrived at the Channel One stage in Leamington Road Villas when the attack happened at about 5.30pm.

Her friend Rebecca Hammerton, 22, told the Standard: “She had only been at carnival for 15 minutes and I was standing right next to her.

“After she pushed him away he started walking off and then a couple of people were laughing, which we think damaged his ego.

“He walked back and swung round and punched her in the face with a right hook punch, using the force of his whole body.

“He was with another person, I think a girl, but they didn’t bat and eyelid and ran off through the crowd.

“He didn’t lose his temper or anything, he was really calm.”

The victim was punched to the floor with blood pouring from her face.

A resident dashed out with a towel to stem the blood flow and an off-duty nurse treated the woman until medics arrived and she was taken to hospital.

Ms Hammerton, 22, a school friend of the victim, said: “She wants people to be aware of the situation.”

Scotland Yard said detectives were investigating allegations of indecent assault and grievous bodily harm close to Westbourne Park Road.

The attacker is described as about 6ft tall, black, in his late 20s or early 30s, and wore all black clothing, including a flat cap.

More than 250 people were arrested at this year's Carnival, and Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe added that he was "concerned" at the number of stabbings as he warned some of them were "centimetres from being a murder".

Anyone with information is asked to contact the Post Carnival Investigations Team on 0208 246 0076.