A mum-of-three working part time at a mental health facility was ambushed by a convicted sex offender and stabbed in the neck.

Tesco cashier Christine Mulroney had been assigned to accompany Kevin MacDonald, 38, by herself, knowing of his convictions and violent tendencies.

Without warning, the patient grabbed her in an enclosed stairwell and slammed her head repeatedly against both sides of the wall.

He held his arm around her throat and thrust a pair of toenail clippers into the side of Christine’s neck.

The victim, who is in her 40s, repeatedly pressed her panic alarm and broke free – but was then pushed down the stairs.

Despite her injuries she got to her feet, escaped through a security door and locked it behind her as colleagues arrived to detain MacDonald.

The father-of-one from Crewe, Cheshire, was being treated at the privately run Spinney psychiatric hospital in Atherton, near Bolton, Greater Manchester.

He had been locked up for beating up and molesting a 17-year old girl in an alleyway.

MacDonald had also been previously convicted of neglect on his own baby son who suffered broken ribs and a ruptured spleen in a beating and of harassing and threatening to kill his former partner.

He initially claimed Christine had touched him in the stairwell but later confessed to not knowing why he attacked the victim.

The healthcare assistant suffered fractures in two places to her left wrist plus multiple bruises to her body and cuts to her neck.

She was left so traumatised she suffers flashbacks and has been unable to return to either job.

Christine was working a 12 hour shift when she was attacked and had taken on the part-time role to top up her wages.

MacDonald who is now being detained at Category A Frankland jail in County Durham.

Appearing at Bolton Crown Court yesterday he was jailed for another three years after admitting inflicting grievous bodily harm.

His not guilty plea to the more serious charge of intent to cause GBH was accepted.

The attack occurred on August 9 last year after MacDonald had been transferred to a low secure ward at the Spinney while serving an indeterminate sentence for public protection imposed in 2008.

This punishment was introduced in England and Wales in 2005 for people considered ‘dangerous’, but whose offence did not merit a life sentence.

MacDonald approached Christine and asked if she was free to take him out of the hospital for an walk around the grounds.

Her role was to escort the patient to the exit, allow him to walk around the gardens unaccompanied, then let him back into the building.

But a staff nurse suggested she go with him for an ‘unescorted walk’, so Christine took him down a corridor and through a number of security doors, the court heard.

In a statement to police about the attack that followed, Christine said: ‘Kevin was stood behind me and I was desperately trying to get him to release me but he was too strong. I was clawing at his arms to try and break his grip but it was no use.

‘I screamed as loudly as a I could to get attention because I was so scared. I was pressing the button on the panic alarm over and over again in the hope someone would attend.

‘I thought I was meant to die that day and I all I could think of was my children.’

Christine told how she still suffered with pain and limited movement in her wrist and has also experienced flashbacks ‘which are getting steadily worse’.

She added: ‘I cannot seen to get his face out of my head or stop thinking I could have been killed by him.

‘I struggle to sleep and wake in a panic at night. This incident has affected the lives of both me and my family and I feel like it was my fault.’

‘I do not feel like I was the same person I was before and I don’t think I will be that person again.’

When security staff detained MacDonald he was found with his arms outstretched as if waiting to be handcuffed.

A report later said he had been assessed as being a ‘high risk’ to others but had made progress whilst being treated at the hospital for a personality disorder.

He was classed as eligible for unescorted leave around the grounds of the facility.

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