SHE was snatched off the street, sexually assaulted and mutilated by a convicted killer who left her for dead in a blazing squat.

But only 48 hours after the attacker was jailed for 20 years, she is able to say: ‘I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

The courage that helped the 28-year-old career girl relive her ordeal at the Old Bailey is more evident than ever as she gives her first interview. Her face is expressive and lovely. She is beautifully turned out and talks in a calm, self-assured way.

Of her assailant, Anthony Ferrira, she says: ‘He could have cancelled my life. I don’t believe he deserves to live. I won’t ever forgive him.’ But what she really wants to stress is how lucky she is. The world is mostly full of good, kind and thoughtful people, she says, smiling. She loves her friends and family. She is intensely grateful to those who have helped her overcome the trauma. Every day feels like a bonus. ‘I love my life,’ she says. ‘That’s why I fought so hard for it.’ It was 7.15 on a February morning and the buyer with a top London store was walking through Brixton, South London, to a business meeting when Ferrira lured her into the squat by pretending his pregnant girlfriend needed help. When she resisted, he produced a knife.

‘I can’t describe the fear when I realised there was nobody else in the room and I thought he was going to kill me,’ she says.

He tried to strangle her then attacked her with a knife, cheesewire and a broken bottle. ‘The sexual acts were repulsive, humiliating and degrading, but I thought I’d do anything to stay alive,’ she recalls. `Then this crazed violence started. I fought to stop him killing me.’

The wounds Ferrira inflicted needed 100 stitches and she lost half her blood. `I wanted to lose consciousness,’ she says. `I wanted it to stop, just to stop the pain, even if it meant dying.

`I felt this deep whirling as if I was being spun round faster and faster. Then there was this profound agony, which I presume was unconsciousness. I didn’t even know whether I was dead. I tried not to breathe so he’d think I was dead, but the fire he’d started began burning my leg so I had to move. He began pounding my neck again.’

Eventually he left. `I hoped I’d die before the flames got to me,’ she says. But she was rescued by a neighbour.

In hospital, fear overwhelmed her. `Ferrira had the contents of my bag and my name,’ she says. `I was scared to go to the lavatory alone. My sister and best friend slept with me every night.’

She needed plastic surgery and still has scars, but doesn’t hide them. She has only just regained the use of one hand.

After hospital, she went to stay with relatives in Spain. `I couldn’t live in this country until he was behind bars.’

At present she is staying with her sister. `I loved living alone before,’ she says. `Now I have to live out of a suitcase.’

She had no partner at the time of the attack, but there have been boyfriends since. `I didn’t know if I could have a normal relationship,’ she admits, `but I’m lucky, I don’t think of Ferrira as a man. A partner in a loving relationship is very different.’

Her greatest difficulty is in being alone. `I won’t go anywhere without a mobile phone. If nobody’s at home, I ring someone from the car before I get out and they talk me through going indoors.’

After three months off work, she went back part-time. Her mother died when she was seven and her father three years ago. `To be honest, his death was far worse than any of this,’ she says. `There’s no way I can fill that gap. But I can rebuild my life and do things he’d be proud of.’

The former convent girl still believes in God. `Things happen for a reason,’ she says, `though I’m not quite sure why this happened. Maybe it was to make me stronger.

`I don’t have nightmares. I don’t feel any guilt or shame about what happened. I didn’t ask for this. Now I just have to get on and deal with it.

`The firemen who rescued me are receiving counselling. I went to see them. I don’t want anyone else to be scarred.’

She admits she found the trial terrifying, particularly the discussion before it was decided she could be screened from Ferrira. `In the end I saw him briefly and was surprised I felt nothing. He looked a pathetic character – not big, as I’d built him up to be in my mind.’

Although he is behind bars at last, she knows her troubles are not over. But she is strong enough to say: `I’m so lucky, I should have died. Now I feel today is the first day of the rest of my life.’