JULIE Chimes lay bleeding to death on her driveway after a knife attack in her own home.

She had fought her way out of the house under a rain of blows from a knife-wielding paranoid schizophrenic.

As Julie crawled towards the road she felt sure someone would stop to help - but they didn't. One man even refused to wrap her in his coat in case she stained it.

In spite of them, she lived to tell her tale and last weekend, ten years after her attempted murder, Julie related her experiences to the Lancashire Victim Support conference at Hutton Police Headquarters.

She said: " I tell people an attack victim needs some physical contact and reassurance - they don't need unhelpful comments like 'she's a goner'. And if they can't help then they should get lost."

The woman followed Julie down the drive, trying to cut her throat while cars simply swerved to avoid them and passers-by ran away.

Eventually, a brave man persuaded the attacker to put down her knife while he ran to a telephone. But when he had gone Julie had to put herself in the recovery position while a crowd argued over her head and discussed her chances.

At the meetings she regularly attends for Victim Support, Julie reads an imaginary letter she wrote in her book A Stranger in Paradise.

She says: "Dear accident onlookers, dying people are not usually deaf and dying people are not always dead - if they are, they are not as dead as you think they are."

She explains ruefully: "I tell my story because it gives people who look after victims a perspective they don't have."

Crime stories are usually told from the point of view of the police, or even the perpetrator.

At conferences she tells accident and emergency workers it's important to talk to the victim. "I wanted someone to tell my mum I loved her, because I thought I might not come out of that operating theatre," she reveals.

Police are asked for a little more tact when questioning a victim of crime. Julie woke up to being accused of trying to murder her attacker. "I went into immediate decline," she said.

Thought is needed about where a person can convalesce and, if the attack happened in their own home, who is going to clear up. Julie's friends had to wash her blood from the walls of her cottage.

Anyone can offer something - a shoulder to cry on, practical skills, even administration for the Victim Support charity. If you can help, call Insp Edwards on 618153.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.