In terrifying detail, a leading novelist describes the random, brutal attack that left her fearing she'd been blinded

UPDATED: 00:59, 4 June 2011

The last thing you expect on a sunny Sunday afternoon is to be violently assaulted in your own front garden, but that is what happened to me.

The teenage girl had been standing in the street shouting at a boy for a good quarter of an hour. On and on and on she went, screaming abuse at him.

Bruised and beaten: Amanda Craig before the savage assault

It was unpleasant, but not unusual, for though I live in a quiet, leafy North London street, we have had our share of inner-city disturbances, ranging from a violent burglary to drug-dealing and even a brothel, all of which helped to inspire my recent novel.

My neighbours couldn’t be nicer or more respectable — I live next door to a postman, minicab driver, engineer and lawyer — but we are ringed by some pretty grim council estates where, it’s said, even the police fear to go.

I should have remembered this when the girl started hitting the boy. He was shrinking away and protecting his head. She was really hurting him.

‘No, no, no, no,’ he yelped; and at that point, concerned for a boy roughly the same age as my son, I intervened.

Had it been a boy hitting a girl I’d have called the police, but because it was the other way round I didn’t realise how dangerous the situation was.

‘Stop that! Move on!’ I said. The girl took no notice, but continued hitting. I was watering my garden, and so I did something instinctive — and idiotic.

I squirted the hose at them for half a second, as you might do to fighting cats. The water landed near their feet, but they didn’t get wet.

The next thing I knew, they had ripped off half my fence and were in the garden. The boy seized the hose and turned it on me before smashing my flowerpots.

The girl began punching me repeatedly in the face with the same savage jabs I’d seen her give the boy. Both were screaming abuse at me.

Half-blinded by water and then her blows, I screamed for my husband. I grabbed hold of the girl’s hair to make her stop hitting me. She seized mine.

The pain was excruciating, but I had my mobile phone in my pocket and with one hand I dialled 999.

I got through to the police — and then came the worst part. I must have told the emergency services operator my address, with full postcode, five times — not an easy thing to do when your hair is being torn out and you’re being punched.

Attacked: Novelist Amanda Craig was brutally assaulted in a random attack (posed picture)

And do you know what he said to me? ‘If you don’t stop screaming, I’m putting the phone down. I need you to spell out the name of your road.’

‘I’m being attacked in my front garden!’ I shrieked, giving my postcode again. But he kept saying: ‘Spell it out.’

'By then, my husband and son had erupted out of the front door, just as the boy had found an empty bottle in our recycling bin that he might use as a weapon. My son had armed himself with a hockey stick.'

In desperation, I said: ‘Charlie, Alpha . . .’ ‘Got it,’ he said.

By then, my husband and son had erupted out of the front door, just as the boy had found an empty bottle in our recycling bin that he might use as a weapon. My son had armed himself with a hockey stick.

‘Put that down!’ my husband roared, and they obeyed reluctantly.

Meanwhile, I was still in a hair-lock with my assailant.‘The police are coming!’ I yelled.‘Let me go, you bitch,’ the girl yelled. ‘I’ll let you go if you let me go.’

It was like some awful playground fight, both of us screaming with pain and fury. ‘We’ll both let go on a count of three,’ I said. ‘One, two, three!’

I released her and, to my astonishment, she released me. There was a moment of bewilderment and then I said to the boy: ‘Why did you attack me? I was trying to help you.’ His reply was to kick another pot, and then, the police sirens approaching, he legged it.

Quiet street: Amanda Craig lives in a relatively calm street in North London but was still brutally assaulted (posed picture)

The girl uprooted more pots and bins because she’d lost her mobile phone. A neighbour spotted it and, as soon as he gave the phone to her, she also ran.

‘Don’t press charges,’ my neighbour said. ‘She lives on the estate at the end of the road — she’ll be back to trash your car or house.’

The police swept past us. At first, we were dumbfounded, but then they returned, having caught her.

Naturally, her story was that I had attacked her with my hose for no reason. Technically, even acting in someone else’s defence, I was guilty of common assault.

'In her stab vest, she was one of the biggest, toughest women I’ve ever seen. Taking my neighbour’s advice, I told her we weren’t going to press charges and why, though I felt ashamed at being intimidated.'

The girl, when confronted with my bruised, bleeding face, apologised, saying she ‘hadn’t meant to do it’.

‘But why did you do it? Why did you hit that boy? Hasn’t anyone ever told you that you must not hit?’ I said.

I felt sorry for her. She wasn’t drunk; she didn’t seem to be on drugs; she seemed hopelessly feral.

The policewoman who saw my swelling eye, bleeding lip and puffed-up face came inside to hear the whole story. She was from the Holborn Violent Crime Unit and told me four other neighbours had done what I stupidly didn’t do before getting involved and called the emergency services.

In her stab vest, she was one of the biggest, toughest women I’ve ever seen. Taking my neighbour’s advice, I told her we weren’t going to press charges and why, though I felt ashamed at being intimidated.

‘It doesn’t matter, she’s still going to be arrested for GBH,’ she said. ‘Do you need an ambulance? I’m not being a drama queen, but you need your eye looked at in A&E.’

Hearts and Minds: One of Amanda Craig's bestselling books

By then, I was conscious of a burning pain in my left eye.

‘Oh, I don’t want to take up resources,’ I said. My husband, who was suffering from shock, said he’d drive me to hospital.

A moment later, we heard the girl shrieking abuse again as she was arrested. We were told later that, in the course of the arrest, the policewoman was assaulted and needed hospital treatment.

By the time I got to A&E, all I could see out of my left eye was white light. With the pain and the fear of being blinded, I burst into tears.

Having researched and written about the violent underbelly of modern life as a novelist, I felt as if something from my imagination had invaded my private life, threatening not only me but my family.

The wonderful, gentle nurses and doctors held my hand and shone lights into my eye, agonisingly. They told me they regularly saw violent assaults of this kind, which are among the worst and most distressing they have to deal with.

The man behind me in the queue had been assaulted by a woman in a pub because of the way he’d looked at her.

Some anaesthetic, then dilating drops, were put in my eye and eventually, as if at the end of a long white corridor, I could read the first two lines of the ophthalmologist’s chart. I felt as if the alphabet was saving and tormenting me.

Everyone was worried that my retina was not only bruised, but torn. I was warned to come back immediately if the black ‘floaters’ I could see became worse.

I was in shock and couldn’t get out of bed for a week. My children, who are in the middle of GCSEs and A-levels, had to look after me.

When I returned to hospital 24 hours later, I fainted. The bruising healed within a week, but the damage to the cornea and the pain continue. The doctors are confident it will heal, though the floaters will always remain.

'Having researched and written about the violent underbelly of modern life as a novelist, I felt as if something from my imagination had invaded my private life, threatening not only me but my family.'

Though I’m no longer frightened of going out of my own door thanks to the kindness of everyone I know, I feel vulnerable and sleep badly.

My assailant was let out on bail and, according to the police, assaulted yet another person.

When I had asked her why she’d hit the boy, she had replied: ‘He’s my boyfriend, and I’ll hit him when I want.’

I found this remark chilling at the time, and it’s a detail that, together with the extraordinary threat by the emergency services operator to cut me off in a time of acute crisis, has stayed with me.

Violence by women and girls has been rising steadily over the past decade, but to those of my generation the fact that the female can be as deadly as the male has been slow to sink in.

Since my assault, I’ve heard many stories from friends whose children have been attacked as often by teenage girls as by boys.

I don’t believe this is anything to do with feminism or some kind of girl power; it seems a general feature of the life of the young, who are suffering the brunt of the recession and other dramatic social changes that have come about over the past two decades.

Unemployment, family breakdown, poor education, depression, cheap drink, the insistence on ‘respect’ and the hatred of authority all play a part.

Twenty years ago, this kind of behaviour from a girl would have been unthinkable. But make no mistake, it could happen to you.