DIANE OSBORNE’S husband died in her arms. ‘After I’d called the ambulance, I begged Bob not to leave me,’ she says.

‘I kept saying, ‘Baby, don’t leave me. Don’t leave me now. Please don’t leave me.’ But he went purple, stopped breathing and died.’

Afterwards she went into deep shock. ‘I had terrible shakes and couldn’t even hold a cup without the liquid pouring out. I’ve been crying a lot and haven’t felt like going from day to day.

‘Each morning I wake up and remember that Bob is dead and I feel sick. I used to eat a lot, now I hardly touch a thing unless somebody forces me. I’ve had terrible nightmares, always the same dream in which Bob is dying and going blue.

‘At first when people spoke to me, the words didn’t even go through my ears to my brain. I couldn’t remember a thing for six weeks – I had to write everything down.

‘Even now I can’t recall things properly. But I can remember everything that happened that night most vividly.’

Robert Osborne, a husband and father of three, was fatally stabbed just before Christmas last year. He was 40 years old.

He was killed by Joseph Elliott, a drugged teenager whom Robert had followed with a hammer when he caught him slashing neighbours’ car tyres for fun. Yesterday an Old Bailey jury allowed the 19-year-old killer to walk free. Diane, 38, is sitting in the kitchen of their rented family home in Streatham being comforted by her sister-in-law Patricia, who lives next door. Diane wears jeans, looks wan, smokes roll-ups and drinks Liebfraumilch. ‘I’m devastated. Justice stinks,’ she says furiously. ‘Elliott admitted taking drugs, slashing tyres and stabbing my husband. But they still said he wasn’t guilty. My husband is now dead and his killer is free.’

She appears alternately distraught and numb. Nothing prepared her for the jury’s verdict. ‘I expected murder or at least manslaughter for that boy,’ she says, looking dazed. (She rarely refers to Elliott by name, generally calling him ‘that boy’.) ‘I don’t have feelings of revenge. But I want a retrial. I’m told I can’t get one because I don’t have any more evidence.’

Elliott’s miserable childhood was used as an excuse in court. ‘But my dad died of cancer when I was 15,’ says Diane. ‘I almost died when I was 12, my mother suffered from mental illness and I was brought up in three foster homes.’

She looks sadly at her two labrador-cross dogs and cat playing nearby. ‘It’s unreal to say that someone doesn’t turn out right because of their childhood.’

She recalls the events of 10 December last year when she was in her garden watching an eclipse of the moon. Robert, a musician and music tutor, was inside decorating.

‘I heard a hissing noise and went out and saw these two guys slashing tyres then trying to break into a pensioner’s house.’

She followed them but fled when they faced her and went back to ring the police. Robert said she shouldn’t bother. ‘We’d called them out before and they hadn’t come. They’re too busy. My car had been done twice before and so had Bob’s. His handbuilt car was his pride and joy.’

Robert grabbed a hammer. ‘He’d had enough of this sort of vandalism. He just wanted to demand an explanation and get their names. He would never ever have used the hammer. He picked the hammer up by its head and just took it for protection.’

He followed the unemployed youth (who was high on LSD, drink and cannabis) to a local council estate, cornered him on a balcony – and was stabbed through the heart.

Diane had followed her husband: ‘Bob ran downstairs to protect me. He collapsed. I tried to stop him kicking Bob while he was dying,’ she says heavily. (In court, Elliott denied kicking his victim as he lay dying.) ‘He punched me around the head and rib cage.’

She holds back tears as she remembers her husband. They’d been together 16 years but she’s shocked and says she cannot remember when they married.’

‘Everybody says they’ve never seen a closer couple. Now it’s been taken away.

‘He was a good father and husband and a just, quiet man. He’s the most gentle man in the world. He used to take spiders out of the bath and put them in the garden to avoid hurting them.

‘He lived for his music and family. He was very clever –and used to teach 13 to 17-year-olds. He also played guitar in pubs with a band or on his own.

‘Our house was derelict when we moved in four years ago – and he did everything from the plumbing to building a pond in the garden. He was so happy that wildlife was thriving in it.’

Diane has coped with life by ‘living for the trial, thinking it would bring justice’.

‘She kept saying her life was over when he was killed,’ explains Patricia. ‘But she kept going so she could see his killer brought to justice.’

How did Diane feel when she saw Elliott? ‘It was very hard. I kept remembering him as I saw him on the night – mad, out of his head, vicious and dangerous.’ After the verdict, Elliott whooped with delight and Diane broke down in tears.

She returned to her ‘broken family’. She has three children – Tarina, 19, Justin, 18, and Lisa, 14. (Yesterday Tarina was on holiday in Spain.) The effect on the children has been devastating. ‘Lisa has done nothing but cry her eyes out. When I told her her father was dead, she went mad.’ They also face the prospect of meeting Elliott because his council flat is 300 yards from Diane’s home. He lives in squalor on an estate littered with cars with missing wheels, syringes on the ground and graffiti. ‘If I bump into him, I don’t know what I’ll do,’ she says, quietly. ‘I suppose I’ll have to do what I did in court and walk by, bite my tongue and hide my tears.

‘I will not move from here,’ she adds, forcefully. ‘It’s my house and Bob did the decorating. If I move somewhere else where there’s no decorating by Bob, my life will be as empty as my heart is now.’

She is also terrified that Lisa will bump into Elliott on her way to school. (Lisa had, in fact, met Elliott before the tragedy. ‘He spoke to me,’ she says. ‘He’s dirty and he always looks like a tramp. I saw inside his home and it’s disgusting.’) The Osborne family is united in their horror at Elliott’s acquittal. ‘When the jury foreman stood up and read out the verdict, I thought another juror was going to stand up and say it was a joke,’ says Justin, a former store security guard.

‘It was bad enough having to go through his death and the funeral, but this really might just finish us off.’

Later, next door, Robert’s brother Mark, a builder, said: ‘How can a peaceful bloke like Robert go out of his house to protect my car, get beaten to death and his killer go free? Those 12 people who let that bastard out should be examining their consciences today.’

Previously Diane had faith in the system of justice. ‘But if I walked into the Queen’s house or didn’t pay my poll tax I’d be locked up tomorrow,’ she says now.

‘We live in a society where people are allowed to slash old ladies’ throats while they’re in bed and rape little girls and get away with it. Now you can’t even go out and protect your car without ending up dead. If that boy had robbed a bank he would have got time.’

Diane’s future is bleak. ‘I’m now trying to survive on income support. I’ve lost his teacher’s salary and have to get by on £70 a week. I’ll scrape through financially. But emotionally I don’t know what I’ll do. I’m knackered. I haven’t got any strength left and nobody can help me.’ She looks down. ‘My husband paid with his life for having a hammer. He died for nothing.’

Self-defence or not? How the judge guided the jury FOR LEGAL reasons, the judge, the prosecutor and the jury in the Robert Osborne murder trial are unable to defend themselves against the mounting tide of public concern.

But, by examining transcripts of the case, it is possible today to throw more light on the way it was handled.

This is an edited version of Mr Justice Kay’s direction to the jury: ‘The only lawful justification for this killing that arises is the question of self-defence.

‘Self-defence is lawful when it is necessary to use force to resist or defend yourself against an attack or threatened attack, and when the amount of force used is reasonable.

‘I emphasise two words: necessary and reasonable.

‘There are, thus, three matters that you have to consider. First and foremost, was the defendant acting in self-defence at all.

‘The defendant tells you he wanted no part in any fighting and if he is or may be right, then clearly his actions were entirely to defend himself. ‘If, however, you accept the evidence of Mr Osborne’s widow, for example, that the defendant shouted down a challenge to Mr Osborne, the prosecution say there is no question of him simply acting in self-defence. ‘Secondly, there is the question whether it was necessary to resort to the use of the knife at all. The defendant says that he was not intending to stab, merely to wave the knife in front of him and that it was Mr Osborne whose momentum carried him on to the knife. Thus he asserts that he was doing no more than was necessary.

‘Thirdly, was the defendant using no more force than was reasonably necessary? What is reasonable depends on all the facts, for example, the nature of the attack or anticipated attack, whether or not a weapon is used and whether or not the attacker was on his own.

My chauffeur is a homosexual with spiky hair and red-framed glasses who speeds me on a Yamaha XJ900 motorbike to meet the lesbian couple. He is Peter Brunnen, the gay rights activist and Labour councillor. And they are the businesswoman and former nurse who this week won a three-year battle to become foster parents. They fear exposure and refuse to be named, photographed or visited at home. So we meet in Brunnen’s office, where he greets a waiting lad with a kiss on the lips.

Hampshire councillors this week overturned their earlier ban which rejected the couple as potential carers because of their sexuality, thereby entitling them to foster children under the age of six for short periods. Jane, 35, and Susan, 36, (not their real names) have been together for 10 years. Susan, an ex-nurse turned part-time A-level student, was once married and has two children: a boy, 13, and girl, 12.

Are the couple open about their lesbian relationship? ‘We don’t go around waving flags, but our friends and neighbours know,’ says Susan. Her children’s classmates also know. ‘The smallest lad picked on my son who just laughed at him and locked him in his locker,’ she laughs.

‘Then let him out,’ Jane adds, hastily.

They aren’t overtly demonstrative in front of the children. ‘We hold hands or hug,’ says Jane. ‘That’s all I consider appropriate for any child to see . . . I think people make too much of sex.’ Their son (as they both call him) stopped telling people he had ‘two mummies’ when he was seven. They maintain firmly that their children don’t receive a distorted view of the world – and they don’t actively promote homosexuality. ‘Quite the opposite,’ says Jane. ‘You don’t say, ‘This is us and this is how it should be.’ ‘ Jane has sincere eyes, ponytail and teacherish clothes, and Susan wears short hair and jeans. They wear wedding rings to symbolise their mutual attachment.

Susan was married for six years and Jane had ‘lots’ of heterosexual relationships. They’re not men-haters. (Susan lusts after Lovejoy.) And they’re not militant feminists, just common-sensical about women’s rights. Susan wants to foster because she has valuable nursing skills to offer. ‘When I worked in hospitals, I saw the state of these children and know how difficult it is for them to find foster parents.’

And Jane? ‘I want to give something back. Something to people who are less happy. I’ve had a pretty good life and have a stable relationship.’ Most fostering reflects the norms of society and they don’t dismiss the traditional Happy Family model. (‘It can be good or awful.’) But they see nothing unsuitable for children about their home. ‘Single-sex families are not that different from ordinary families,’ maintains Jane.

They don’t deem the lack of a male role model a problem. ‘It’s important to have both points of view, but not vital to have both available within the household. You make sure the children have contact with positive, successful males,’ says Jane.

‘Anyway, it’s mostly the mother who takes over the care in a normal family,’ adds Susan. They would never enact male/female roles, considering such behaviour ludicrous.

They will only foster short-term, so cannot understand the press interest. They only want a young child, so as not to compete with Susan’s offspring, and don’t mind about the child’s sex. They’ll happily care for the mentally or physically disabled – ‘to give their parents a break’ – and different races.

It’s likely they’ll be given children who are neglected and unwanted. ‘That’s the point of doing the job,’ says Susan. But aren’t they putting them at a further disadvantage? ‘All that matters is that the child goes to someone who is going to listen, provide for all his needs, food, warmth and security.’

Wouldn’t it be harder for such children to grow up with a positive image of men? ‘I don’t think that living with two women means that you won’t trust men,’ says Susan. ‘You can have your father in the house and discover that men are untrustworthy.’

They think abused children would actively benefit in a single-sex family of the opposite gender to the abuser. And a teenager questioning his sexual identity might be helped. ‘It would give him the space to come to terms with whether or not he’s gay,’ says Jane.

Susan’s father was a sheet-metal worker and Jane’s a plant operator. They say they had happy childhoods and that their parents’ marriages were ‘fine’. Both women are agnostic (nominally Church of England). They weren’t exposed to lesbianism as children. ‘I didn’t know it existed until I was 19. Stupid me!’ says Jane. Surprisingly they say their parents weren’t upset by their relationship.

Jane considers Susan an excellent parent: ‘I know the children come before me.’ She would have liked her own children and would have had artificial insemination. ‘I don’t feel sad though. I’ve done my share of parenting.’ But she applauds their arrangement. ‘We probably go more out of our way than most to make sure our children grow up without prejudice and treat them as individuals. Ours is a happy, nurturing and stable family.’ They are loving and patient and there is no reason to disbelieve them. They’re not interested in political correctness, just in a child having the most appropriate placement for his needs. There is little research on children brought up by lesbian couples and no evidence that it harms them. I start to ask whether they’d prefer . . .

‘Yes,’ interrupts Susan. ‘I would prefer my children to get married and have children. They both talk about doing it. That’s what they want and it’ll make life a lot easier for them.’

Her 14-year-old son boasts that he has done some 500 break-ins in the past year. Today he was back in court and released once more because the authorities say there is nowhere with room to detain him. His mother, affectionate and frank, is in despair.

THIS WOMAN’S 14-year-old has been responsible for 200 high street burglaries in the past year. He boasts to his mother that he has actually done about 500 break-ins with his gang. The thefts have cost traders in one street £200,000. But social workers have told the boy’s mother that over the two years the gang has operated, they have stolen £2 million worth of goods. He has walked free from court appearances on 33 occasions.

His mother Tracey (not her real name), 32, is sitting in her £100,000 Sutton house. She is a surprisingly kindly woman, pretty, with a gentle face and wearing a gold cross. Her sitting room is neat and feminine. This is her cry for help.

‘I’m frightened this is going to end with my son going into banks with shotguns,’ she says. ‘I’ve told him ‘In a panic you could stab someone, couldn’t you?’

‘Kevin (not his real name) told me yesterday: ‘I don’t regret being a thief. These have been the best two years of my life. I’ll steal while I can because I enjoy it. I’m addicted to it. It feels fantastic going into a shop, taking what you want and knowing nothing can be done to you.” Because of his age, Kevin cannot be remanded in custody and is out on conditional bail. He hasn’t been placed in secure accommodation because every establishment in the country is full. At the moment he is said to be ‘still fifth from the top of the list’.

‘He’s not like a 14-year-old. I’m petrified of him driving drunk to London and going with a woman on the streets and getting Aids. I asked if he went to brothels. He said no. I just said: ‘If you’re going to do something, use something.’ I don’t think boys of that age should go to bed with anyone. He lost his virginity two years ago. He has girlfriends of 18 and older. He also comes in absolutely legless, having driven a stolen car.’ KEVIN burgles Marks and Spencer to Boots. This week he admitted to one major raid on Dorothy Perkins where he stole £28,000 of clothing. His latest string of burglaries totalled £57,000. He sometimes leaves a calling card bearing his initials and the legend ‘Call 999′. He also has his gang insignia tattooed on his wrist. (When he goes to court, Tracey tells him: ‘Don’t bite your nails, keep your hands out of your pockets and be polite.’) Kevin won’t tell his mother where he hides the goods or to whom he sells them. ‘He’s come in with wads of money. I won’t take any – that would condone his behaviour…He says he’s spent it all at top restaurants like the Savoy and Ritz. That can’t eat up £10,000. I said they wouldn’t let him in. But he said he dressed very smartly and stole a good car for the evening.’

Tracey and her boyfriend John are unemployed (and he lives elsewhere). She lives on income support of £91 a week, has a £67,000 mortgage and was recently threatened with repossession. She is £8,000 in arrears and her gas and electricity were recently disconnected. (‘I never had anything as a child,’ she says later. ‘So my dream was always to be able to give my children everything.’ Kevin has never stolen from her. ‘He never steals from houses. It’s his code of honour.’) Events have taken their toll on her. ‘I’ve got so much pent-up anger. I smash anything that’s glass. I’ll throw a vase against the wall or rip my clothes to pieces. I tear up anything that I love. I know I need to see a psychiatrist. And obviously me being like this rubs off on Kevin.’ She finds it hard to cope. For seven years she’s taken tranquillisers and anti-depressants which she gets from a friend. ‘I feel so rough, so down, really awful,’ she says, calmly. ‘I also binge constantly. I cry most of the time. The night before last, I just buried my head in Kevin’s lap, crying and sobbing. He got so upset and said: ‘Don’t cry Mum.”

She leaves her phone off the hook at night. ‘We’ve had threats. One midnight caller said I was a no-good, police-loving, grassing **** and that he was going to slice up my daughter.’

Tracey came from a violent home. Her father, a hotel chef, was a drinker. ‘I was knocked around constantly and beaten badly for years by my dad. He dragged me through the flat by my hair.’ Tracey rarely hit Kevin. ‘Sometimes I felt like strangling him. I just couldn’t get through to him. Now this has blown up, he talks to me.’ She attempted to discipline him by making him stay in, but he would run out.

She doesn’t know whether society needs to condemn a little more and understand a little less. ‘I just want Kevin to be put into care and taken off the streets so that he’s safe. He’ll hate me for saying that.’ Kevin’s background was unstable. Tracey’s first marriage broke up because she ‘married too young’ at 16. ‘I had a nervous breakdown when we split. I couldn’t get up, wash or touch the house. I sent the children to their grandparents. I lost three stone.’ She married ‘foolishly’ the second time, three years ago, and it lasted only a year. She has been with John intermittently for seven years, but they have never lived together. ‘I THINK Kevin missed his dad who left when he was nine. I definitely shouldn’t have parted with him. Kevin adored him. He wasn’t a bad father. He didn’t hit the children.’ (Kevin’s siblings by the same father all behave impeccably. One sister is doing A-levels and wanted to be a policewoman but now hopes to do law.) ‘We don’t really speak. He sees Kevin about once every three months. I’ve rung him to ask him to help me with Kevin and he just says: ‘What can I do?”

She feels very guilty. ‘I wonder what I did wrong with Kevin. I feel completely responsible.’ She hates the possibility that he might be abusing drugs. So how much should he take responsibility for his own behaviour? Big pause. ‘I don’t know. I always blame myself.’

Kevin was trouble from the start. ‘He was a very destructive three-year-old and has always been a rogue. He was sent to school for behaviour problems when he was 11, because he was violent. If anyone upset him, he would go for them. And he would hurt himself. Aged 12, he didn’t want to hit his head teacher, so he punched a fire door and broke his wrist. He used to call the fire brigade to school.’ Though literate, he hasn’t been to school for 17 months.

The first time Kevin committed an offence, two years ago, he defaced a shop in Sutton. ‘A few weeks later he was up for assault. He beat a boy up. He said the boy started it.’ Shortly after, Kevin’s bike was stolen. ‘We’d been saving for it for months. He went frantic.’

So in 1991, they ‘escaped’ to live in France with John. ‘I was also going through a really bad time, finishing my second marriage.’ Kevin was sent to private school there, but lasted only three weeks. ‘He doesn’t like to be the centre of attention,’ she says, without irony.

THEY returned to England to visit the grandparents – and Kevin refused to leave again. ‘After two weeks they called and said they couldn’t cope. He’d started breaking into shops. He made his poor grandad ill, made his heart worse.’ (Kevin is currently living with his grandparents.) Tracey was forced to return permanently. ‘I had to sit in a house with no furniture in it, trying to keep my eye on Kevin. But he was constantly running away. Sometimes for weeks at a time.’

She has no answer to the problem of soaring juvenile crime. Kevin was in care for six weeks, six months ago. ‘He did whatever he wanted, came and went as he pleased.’ She’s upset that the courts haven’t detained him, fearful that he will re-offend. And she’s worried at the prospect of his going into a secure unit. ‘I’m frightened he’ll learn worse things. One boy there breaks a bottle over his victim’s head then smashes it in his face.’ They went to counselling together – once. ‘He just wouldn’t talk outside the family. I didn’t like it either. It made me feel ‘They think I don’t know how to cope with my family.” She disapproves of Kenneth Clarke’s plans to lock away for up to two years 12- to 15-year-olds already convicted of imprisonable offences. ‘It’s too young. These children need help. They need something to do.’

Tracey is frank, cooperative and tries to be as honest as she can when she talks about Kevin, but she is self-deluded. ‘Kevin is so lovable,’ she says, seriously. ‘In court we were cuddling, kissing and holding hands. He’s terribly affectionate. He’s a lovely kid. Very quiet and loving. I love him to death.’

But she doesn’t know if he has a future. ‘He may end up killing himself. I have nightmares about him. I don’t think he’s ever going to grow up. In my dreams, I see him in a coffin, looking the way he is today, but dead.’

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.’

The world is mostly full of good, kind and thoughtful people. Miss X smiles as she says this, and emphasises how lucky she is. She says she loves her friends and family. She expresses her intense gratitude. And she explains how every day feels like a plus. ‘I love my life,’ she says, ‘that’s why I fought so hard for it.’

Last February Miss X was snatched off the street by a convicted killer, brutally attacked, sexually assaulted, mutilated, nearly burned alive and left for dead, trapped in a burning room. She was inflicted with 10 wounds, some near-fatal, lost half her body’s blood and needed 100 stitches. On Wednesday at the Old Bailey, her assailant, Anthony Ferrira, was jailed for 20 years. ‘He could have cancelled my life, callously hurting my friends and family. I don’t believe he deserves to live. I won’t ever forgive him,’ says this courageous and remarkable woman in her first interview.

Miss X, a 28-year-old buyer with a top London store, has a lovely and expressive face. She is beautifully turned out and well-spoken. She talks in a calm, self-assured way, maintaining eye contact as we speak. She was approached at 7.15am in the street by a stranger. He lured her into his Brixton 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.’

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

‘I wanted to lose consciousness. 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 that 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 and she tried to escape the flames, but couldn’t. ‘I hoped I’d die before the flames got to me.’ She was rescued by a neighbour who heard her screams and managed to break the door down.

In hospital, fear overwhelmed her. ‘Ferrira had the contents of my bag and my name. I was scared even to go to the toilet alone. My sister and best friend slept with me every night. We were pretty rowdy and drank lots of champagne. I would never want to become morose about this. There’s so much worth laughing about.’

She has an independent, sociable, optimistic personality and a wide circle of good friends and close family. She needed plastic surgery and now has scars, but she doesn’t hide them. ‘I was shocked and horrified when I first saw myself.’ She has just regained the use of one of her hands. After hospital, she went to stay with family in Spain. ‘I couldn’t live in this country until he was behind bars.’ Now she lives with her sister. ‘I loved living alone before. I have to live out of a suitcase and have none of my belongings.’

Although she didn’t have a partner at the time of the crime, she has had boyfriends since. Has the attack traumatised her sexually? ‘I didn’t know if I was going to feel all right and if I could have a normal relationship, but I’m lucky, I don’t think of Ferrira as a man. He had nothing to do with my life. A partner in a loving relationship is very different. This hasn’t made me prejudiced against blacks either.’

Her greatest difficulty is being alone. ‘It isn’t as frightening now, but I won’t go anywhere without a mobile phone. The company gave me a car. I always check before I get in, then lock myself in. If nobody’s at home, I ring someone from the car before I get out and they talk me through going into the house.’ She is also frightened to travel on public transport. AFTER three months off work, she went back part-time. She had a happy childhood and a close family, although her mother died when she was seven and her father died three years ago.

‘I believe they were there looking after me when I was being attacked. To be honest, my father’s death was far worse than any of this. He’s gone and there’s no way I can fill that gap. But I can rebuild my life and do things he’d be proud of.’ She attributes her mental resilience to the experience of her parents’ deaths.

She has a faith, partly born of a convent education, and a belief in God. ‘I’m here for a purpose. I don’t know whether for something good. But my time obviously wasn’t up. Things happen for a reason, though I’m not quite sure why this happened. Maybe it was to make me stronger and rethink things. I’ve always thought, ‘I’ll get through this and things will be better because I’ll make them better.’

‘I think I’ve been very lucky that I haven’t been haunted with the memories. Of course I go over what happened. I had never faced physical violence before. But I don’t have nightmares. I don’t think, ‘If only…’ I’ve never taken it personally. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. You can’t stop things like this happening.

‘I’ve only had two sessions of counselling, but hadn’t felt I needed it. 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. I’m not trying to put a brave face on it. If something frightens me, I’ll talk about it. I don’t think I’ve buried the experiences. I’m frightened that other people will think I’m cold-hearted and tough, but this is just my way of getting through it. ‘I actually think it’s been harder for other people. I’ve felt for a long time that people were waiting for me to break down, that there was no way I could get through this. That might still happen, but I don’t think so.’ She recites a touching credit roll of those people she feels indebted to. ‘If Ferrira’s girlfriends hadn’t been brave enough to come forward, he might never have been arrested.’ The police, ‘particularly WPc Holding who was with me right from casualty onwards,’ and the firemen were ‘superb’. ‘The firemen who rescued me are receiving counselling. I went to see them for tea and to laugh. I’ve managed to get over this, and I don’t want anyone else to be scarred.’

MISS X found the trial particularly difficult. She had to give evidence, although she just wanted her statement read out. ‘I didn’t want to bring it all back.’ Then there was ‘frightening’ discussion over whether she could be screened from Ferrira’s gaze. Fortunately she was.

‘In the end I saw him briefly and was surprised I felt nothing. He looked a pathetic character and not big, as I’d built him up to be in my mind.’ Now she doesn’t feel elated. ‘He’s behind bars, but I still have to cope.’ She knows her troubles are not over.

But she’s articulate, strong and looks well. ‘I’m so lucky. I should have died. Now I feel today is the first day of the rest of my life. I can’t explain how I’ve got off so lightly without the mental scars. Thank God I In her first interview, the victim of the brutal Brixton sexual attack and kidnapping talks about the ordeal and its effect on her life. This week, her attacker, Anthony Ferrira, was jailed for 20 years.

The female bricklayer Tracie Simpson knew she was going to be in trouble from the start. The first day she arrived at the depot to begin work, 150 male workmates downed tools and stood watching her. Immediately someone commented on her bottom. ‘Is it a lesbian, ain’t it a lesbian?’ asked someone else from this territorial and testosterone-pumping group.

Simpson, now 28, joined Greenwich council as a trainee bricklayer in 1986. She was intimidated with violence and all talk was abusive. ‘I felt so threatened. I used to think the men might rape me.’ Male colleagues asked her whether she shaved her pubic hair and whether her spirit level fitted her vagina. Another time, she was in a hut with eight men and one lay on the bench thrusting, fornicating style, and talking explicitly.

‘I used to just sit there and read my book.’ She sounds upset when she talks, sometimes holding back tears.

Simpson endured this cruel sexual and racial harassment for an astonishing four and a half years. She became ill from the stress and in May 1991 was unfairly dismissed while she was off sick, allegedly having been made redundant.

Last week she won £15,000 compensation from Greenwich council, one of the highest recorded payments for sexual and racial harassment at work. This ‘breakthrough’ out-of-court settlement followed an industrial tribunal in which she was represented by the builders’ union Ucatt.

Simpson wears a thick sweater, biker’s boots, Afro dreadlocks, cat scratches all over her hand and she has a muscular body. ‘I could haul mortar or bricks up 60 foot and build a chimney stack on my own. I can pick up what men can pick up,’ she says defiantly in a cockney accent. ‘I was good at my job and I worked harder than the men.’ She doesn’t think she has female physical limitations.

She was paid equally and was only once unable to do something the men could when her back gave out as she worked on a brick wall. She received a credit for her practical work in her City and Guilds exam and believes she should have the right to do a traditionally male job at which she is competent.

Simpson felt humiliated by the catalogue of abuse she endured at work and went often to the women’s unit at Greenwich council for support. She complained frequently to her managers but, she says, they did nothing to help and some contributed to the abuse. Without success, she repeatedly begged the supposedly right-on council with its two female directors to sort out the problem.

She felt isolated and spent most of her weekends crying until she became ill with anxiety in October 1990. Eventually she was off work on full sick pay for seven months.

‘I couldn’t leave the house. I couldn’t socialise. I’d had enough. My insides felt drained.’ Her doctor recommended she quit her job and prescribed tranquillisers, which she took initially. Then she started having counselling. ‘I feel as if someone’s stolen something from me they have no right to.’

During her illness, her rare forays outside proved daunting. ‘A council guy kept coming to my house, harassing me and slagging me off,’ she says, smoking. ‘If I went out and bumped into someone from the council, I started to shake all over. I went to Safeway’s one day and this council bloke came up behind me and pinched my arse.’

Simpson (whose mother works as a DSS supervisor) is illegitimate and of mixed race. She thinks she’s part Afro-Caribbean and has a black grandmother. She was the only one in her family who wasn’t white. ‘I don’t know my real father,’ she says. ‘I thought the father I had was my father until my mother divorced him when I was 13. Then a neighbour told me he wasn’t my proper dad.’

Her surrogate father had a nasty temper. ‘He thumped and beat me with his fists. He used to hit me for being a minute late from school, to stop me chewing my nails or because I walked with my feet turned out a bit.’ She left home at the age of 16.

Simpson was educated at Mottingham girls’ school – where she was ‘a little rebel’ – and left with no qualifications. She wanted to be a nursery nurse, but was unqualified, so went to work in a meat factory for three years. ‘I got sacked because I didn’t bother to go in.’ She was unemployed for a year, then got into community programme gardening, started doing some bricklaying and proved a natural. Next she applied to become a trainee bricklayer with Greenwich council.

‘I got into it by accident, but it was really important for me to do this job. For the first time in my life, I’d found something I was good at and wanted to do.’

What of her relationships? For seven years, until she was 24, Simpson went out with a white, male biker. But does she like men? (‘The builders,’ she had said earlier, ‘were gutless.’) ‘Yeah, I’m fine around them … I actually believe everyone is bisexual.’ She now lives alone in a flat in Deptford with two cats and a dog.

She received £1,000 redundancy pay and is going to live off her £15,000 compensation money. ‘I just see it as an acknowledgement that the council was abusive. Because of it I’m not eligible for unemployment benefit.’ She is unemployed but does voluntary youth work, looking after an 18-year-old. ‘I’m there to support him. If he needs, for example, to go to a job interview and feels nervous, I accompany him.’ She doesn’t plan to look for a more traditionally female job. ‘I think people should be able to mix.’

She hopes her experience will encourage other women to fight harassment. The supposedly politically correct Greenwich council took on six other women in Simpson’s intake as trainee carpenters, bricklayers and plumbers. But they all left within two years because of harassment.

Of its 523 building section employees, only 45 are women. ‘The council said it was going to employ more women, but never did,’ says Simpson. ‘That’s what really finished me off.’

The council says it has introduced a new complaints procedure for harassment, victimisation and discrimination. No one has been disciplined over Simpson’s complaints.

Simpson talks assertively. She doesn’t see herself as a victim and calls herself a feminist. ‘I was bought up on the streets, so I’m quite hard-wearing.’

She admits she was a threat to the men she worked with. Was she in any way responsible for what happened? Surely there was something in her attitude that upset the male brickies?

‘No way, no, no, no!’ she says. She feels ‘entirely blameless’. That’s why she carried on working. ‘I liked my job and wasn’t going to have any idiot take it away from me.’ She has no plans to return to bricklaying. ‘Not unless they gave me a job to sack all those beasts.’

IT’S OVER. The harsh streaks of an uneasy dawn brings the news that they have found the last of them. He is dead. We are told he is Peter Alcock. More we do not know.

Faces sunk from lack of sleep take in the information and turn away. There is no emotion left. The price of coal!

I look around what is for me an unfamiliar landscape. The head-gears over the shafts look like giant, grey steel Meccano constructions. Their halogen lights are always on for shift workers, making the whole place look somewhat like the Nottingham Forest football ground under floodlights. A yellow bulldozer goes back and forth up a black mountain, stockpiling coal. There are 400,000 tonnes in these mountain stocks – enough to fuel 100,000 homes for a year. You’d need climbing gear to tackle one of these man-made mountains.

They should be selling it – but they are over-producing. The killer around here, says one policeman without irony, is the dash for gas. They have 14 million tonnes of coal on the ground in Bilsthorpe. We are in Robin Hood country, the region near Sherwood Forest. But this is the land not of merrie men but dejected ones.

There is frost on the road and there are patches of fog. You can make out industrial estates, quarries and flesh-coloured buildings – miners’ houses on the fringe of the pit.

It is a busy and bustling community during the day but it is no place to be standing and stamping one’s feet during the night; especially this night.

Around 4am it really hits me. Two orange-suited miners with lamps on their heads and in their hands walk past. The air is chilly and it may be only that which set off the shivers.

We are waiting for two men still 2,000 feet beneath the ground on which I stand.

Now we know they were dead already. Then, we still had hope. Even so, I couldn’t stop thinking of the wife of David Shelton, 31, from Bingham, who was visited by a personnel manager earlier in the evening. She is eight months pregnant and has an 18-month old child – and he had to tell her that her husband had been found dead.

Despite all the technological advances in recent years the fear that their man might not return from their shift lurks in the subconscious of every miner’s wife from the day they marry to the day he retires. It is that which makes miners wives special people and miners’ communities special: The price of coal.

In St Margaret’s Church they lit five candles for the missing. Forty people turned up for the service of mourning for the dead and exaltation for the living.

It started at 11am yesterday when the collapse occurred. The flying squad emergency team from Mansfield Hospital and the pit’s emergency team were immediately in operation.

They brought out Paul Smith with facial injuries, in deep shock but conscious, with a sore back.

Then they found Bill McCulloch, a 26-year-old bachelor who lived with his parents. Bill was dead.

It is different at pitheads these days in times of disaster. Mourning is done in private. Technology detracts somehow from the great drama of the rescue. Yet it is human still. Throughout the night colliery workers brought us tea and coffee.

‘There were one or two doomwatchers at Toppa Pit Lane,’ said a security man, ‘but now it’s quiet.’

Earlier he was given flowers – white and yellow roses and pink hydrangeas picked by an ex-miner from Clipstone pit and a former miner from Bilsthorpe.

‘They wanted them put inside pit shafts,’ he said. ‘If he’s taken t’trouble to pick them, I must get them down there when I’m allowed.’ The flowers lay on a plastic chair in his office dying – while the teams of tired men, working ‘20-minute snaps’ pursued a rescue operation in which hope was fading.

And then, suddenly, it was over and the miners and their families returned to get on with the rest of their lives, while we who came to report upon this night got into our cars and drove away weary past a gamut of safety instructions: ‘Wear gloves’ dictated one sign on the road; ‘Think before you act’ said another; ‘Remove dangers yourself’; ‘Wear eye protection’; ‘Know your support rules’.

For us the morning brought another story in another part of the country.

TODAY is probably the world’s biggest ever redundancy party. Thousands of British Telecom employees will be celebrating becoming former British Telecom employees. In fact there’s never been a Black Friday quite like it. More than 30,000 jobs are to be shed this year, of which 19,000 go today. And with generous redundancy payouts for them all, the mood promises to be one of Gold Rush fever. As if everyone has won the pools.

Which has led to speculation that the pubs will be awash with BT chaps waving fat cheques and drinking themselves silly after organising a giant conga out of the BT headquarters.

There have been parties all week. Parties all round the country. Yesterday the celebratory wrist exercises started at 11.30 am. The venue? Upstairs at The Sir Christopher Wren pub in the shadow of St Paul’s, within a square mile of HQ and about a dozen other BT buildings.

One man drinks three pints before midday. ‘”Downstairs in the function room other BT folk are ringing the changes. The room has been booked from 12.30 until the evening and up to 150 people are expected. But there isn’t a Beattie in sight. ‘The assembled party goers are all male.

Bill is counting 20 lots of £20 notes and leaving them behind the bar to pay for the drinks. ‘Some of them just leave a credit card behind the bar,’ says landlady Julie Wood. ‘We’ve had a party every day this week. Some go on all day.’ After all, they’ve had their salary slips, so they know the redundancy money is in their accounts.

‘The atmosphere’s like the Notting Hill Carnival,’ says one Invisible Man – like many, he signed the Official Secrets Act in the days when BT employees were civil servants and doesn’t want to be named. ‘Some of The Suits are getting £200,000 pay-offs. And people in their twenties are getting deals that exceed £20,000.’ This Invisible Man wears a white short-sleeved shirt and grey slacks, called ‘BT Image Clothes’ by these folk.

Employees have been raring to accept voluntary redundancy. The revellers tell stories of the faxes that have been pouring out of the machines in BT over the last few weeks. One is an unprintable version of the song Please Release Me Let Me Go. Another is a tasteless joke involving Princess Diana. ‘’

Stories of those who have been turned down are legion. ‘I know a whole department which applied,’ says bearded Alex, who has taken off a half day to be at this party. Unusually, he is still employed, and happy. ‘One guy had a terrific fight. It was war. He was shouting and thumping at the table trying to get out. The ones who have asked to go and haven’t been allowed are incredibly bitter.

‘One technical officer was told he could go. He sold his house and got a place at college and a grant – and then he got a letter saying he couldn’t leave. ”

Another man whose application was accepted adds: ‘There are people who have ordered cars in the belief that they’re going to get redundancy, and they’ve been turned down.’ He is 54 years old. ‘I was turned down twice. I’m glad – because this is a much better offer.’

An anonymous engineer of 54 is holding the party today. He has left the company after 33 years. ‘I’m happy to go,’ he says, with a grin. ‘I won’t look for another job. I’ve got plenty to occupy myself at home. Only time will tell if I’ve got enough money never to work again.’ The music blares. How does he feel about his job prospects? ‘You can always take early-morning cleaning jobs if you’ve got to make ends meet.’

His friend, a man with a kindly face and coloured shirt, has also worked for the company for 33 years. He’s divorced and has three children over 18. ‘I used to enjoy the job, but morale’s got so low now.’ He’s drinking bitter shandy to stay sober. ‘I’ve already been to a party on the Regalia boat this week.’ Nearby a man pretends to kiss his friend with abandon on the cheeks. ‘I’ve retired,’ he continues, with glee. He says he’s been counting the hours since he was told in April that he could go. ‘When people ask what I do, I’m going to say I’m a ‘pensioner bumming around’. I’m going to spend every day playing golf. I’ve got to go to the dole office to get national insurance credits. If a job comes up I bet I’ll get it,’ he says morosely. ‘But I don’t want one.’ He’s having his Redundancy Party on Friday. ‘I’m putting £200 behind the bar.’ ”’

Dave Flack, 27 and single, has long hair and a gold earring. He wears jeans and T-shirt. He doesn’t mind being named. ‘”He has worked for 11 years, doing private wire maintenance. Latterly he was paid a salary of £19,000. ‘I don’t have a job to go to. I’ll probably do part time work for BT through Manpower.’ Why did he decide to leave? ‘Because I wanted a change.’ He also got ‘over £20,000′ redundancy. ‘‘Hopefully I’ll be able to buy a house.’

Chairman Iain Vallance hasn’t joined them. He’s out of town today at the BT AGM in Birmingham. ‘He’s a dove,’ says the 54-year-old would-be golfer. ‘He really knows how to look after people.’

Down the street, more former BT employees are revelling al fresco outside the Master Gunner pub. This is the party for Rick Hullett, who is bald, genial and drinking whisky. They’re all signing someone’s leaving card which reads ‘congratulations’. It’s 2pm and the atmosphere is like that in a coach of football fans. Lots of roars and cheers.

Andy Yates, 30, is ‘happy’ to leave after 14 years. He’s getting ‘over £30,000′. ‘I’m going to North London University to do computing and information technology.’

There are 20,000 people who have been refused a redundancy package because of oversubscription.

‘”‘”‘”-£ So what of the conga? ‘What!’ says a former engineer. ‘With all the people leaving, it would clog up London.’

BT: THE FACTS * 19,000 jobs will go today with another 11,000 to be axed by the end of the year. Payoffs range from between £17,000 to £204,000.

* 35,000 jobs have been cut in the past two years.

* BT made profits of £3 billion in the last financial year – £250 million a month between October and December, or £95 a second.

* BT has announced a 27.8 per cent fall in pre-tax profits for the first quarter to 30 June this year.

* Chairman Iain Vallance last year received a salary increase of 43 per cent taking his basic pay and bonuses to £534,000. This year’s 12.5 per cent increase if matched to bonuses could take his pay to well over £600,000. * The company, which was privatised in 1988, has 26 million customers, three quarters of whom rent phones at £17.88 a year.

* Complaints about BT rose to almost 41,400 last year, up from 38,530 in 1990 according to official regulator Oftel.

* Oftel has ordered BT to lower connection charges from £152.75 to £99. Also ordered a review of charges.

* BT uses 45,000 tons of paper for Yellow Pages directories, 2,300 tons in photocopier machines, 1,750 tons in brochures and publications and 25 tons for business cards.

* Maureen Lipman and the Beattie advertisement campaign was dropped in favour of the £20 million Get Through To Someone campaign. March 1992. * A £12 million campaign was launched with police to defeat obscene callers in July 1992.

Friendly, unaffected, lovely, always pleasant . . . these were the words with which friends and acquaintances described murdered mother Rachel Nickell today.

The blonde, part-time model was strikingly good-looking, with natural poise and charm. She was ‘the kind of woman whose looks stopped people in their tracks’, recalled a neighbour.

Fitness fanatic Rachel, 23, followed a regular routine of swimming, walking on Wimbledon Common or playing tennis. At the local leisure centre, where she swam two or three times a week and took son Alex to the mother and baby swimming group, her beauty made sure she stood out from the crowd. ‘She had this great self-confidence,’ said assistant manager, Jacek Kaldonek.

‘Although she had a tremendous physique, she was never one to flaunt herself. I’m sure she knew she was attractive, but you would never see her flirting or anything like that.

‘She was always smiling and she was an excellent swimmer. A lovely, unaffected sort of person.’

Rachel, daughter of well-off parents from Bedfordshire, dropped out of university early and never completed her degree. The social services would no doubt describe her as an unmarried mother, but she was in a loving, stable relationship with Andre Hanscombe.

Mr Hanscombe, 29, a dispatch rider, is hard-working, good-looking, a talented semi-professional tennis player, who one day hopes to turn pro, said neighbours.

The couple behaved like newly-weds, openly affectionate in public. ‘They were close, they were in love,’ said the manager of Bucci’s Italian restaurant in Balham, where they would eat once a week.

‘They used to kiss and hold hands. They were always looking into each other’s eyes.’

Friends said Rachel was a devoted mother to Alex. She chose to give birth at home, and afterwards, her career took second place.

Elderly neighbour Walentina Korzeniowska recalled: ‘I stopped her in the street once to tell her her boy was the most beautiful child in London. She was the sort of woman you wanted to say things like that to.’ Child-minder Lorna Wilkes would help Rachel out, looking after Alex when she went on modelling assignments. ‘She was a kind, lovely person,’ said Lorna. ‘She and Andre were devoted to each other.’

Rachel, Andre, Alex and their mongrel Molly lived in the smarter end of Tooting in an £85,000 modernised two-bedroom flat in Elmfield Mansions, a well-maintained block.

Estate manager Mr Shanti Shah said the flat was under offer, and the sale is going through. ‘They wanted to live in the country,’ he added. Today the curtains of the third floor flat were drawn behind the window box overflowing with flowers which Rachel had carefully tended. The couple weren’t well off, but had a Volvo and had recently tidied up another car, ready to sell.

Rachel’s parents are not even here to hear the news and take some small comfort from their son, Mark, 25, who is studying to be a vet at London University.

Andrew Nickell, 50, and his wife Monica, 48, left for Canada yesterday to visit Andrew’s sister.

They have a £250,000 modern detached house in the Bedfordshire village of Ampthill, where Rachel and Andre had recently visited them.

In the tree-lined street with carefully manicured lawns and well-tended potted shrubs, Rachel’s parents are respected and admired. ‘They are the kindest couple. There’s nothing in the world they wouldn’t do for anybody,’ said one neighbour.

This gentlest of couples will learn over the phone of their only daughter’s murder, and will then have to return home to see their grandchild, still so deep in shock after witnessing his mother’s killing that he cannot speak.

An elderly neighbour of Rachel’s parents paid her tribute. ‘Rachel was a happy-go-lucky girl. She was full of life, very beautiful.’

CHERRY ROOMES is 43. To date she has lost 13 babies. Anne, Jane, Megan, Edwina, Emily and Eleanor survived long enough to be named. Megan lived for three days and Eleanor for seven and a half months.

THE nursery stands ready and the crib has been redecorated in new broderie anglaise. It is the crib Cherry Roomes slept in as a child. Now it awaits the arrival of a miracle.

To date Cherry has lost 13 babies. Anne, Jane, Megan, Edwina, Emily and Eleanor survived long enough to be named. Megan lived for three days and Eleanor for seven and a half months.

Two children from a previous marriage have survived, but all the other babies died in the womb and with four of them Cherry had to go through labour knowing the child was already dead. Yet next week she hopes to give birth to baby number 16 by Caesarean section. He already has a name, Benjamin.

By safely delivering him, the medical team at King’s College Hospital will be making medical history, and put an end to one woman’s extraordinary saga of love, despair and monumental determination.

Benjamin is already a miracle of human science. For the baby has already undergone the world’s first bone marrow transplant in the womb and he has been kept alive by regular blood transfusions – some of them directly into his heart.

His mother has rare rhesus negative blood. Her husband Geoff, a primary school headteacher, is rhesus positive. Every time Cherry Roomes becomes pregnant, the unborn baby is also rhesus positive, and her body simply attacks and kills it as a foreign invader.

The nursery stands ready and the crib Cherry herself slept in as a baby has been redecorated in new broderie anglaise.

‘I recovered the crib inside and out in 1981, but I’ve never had a baby to put in it,’ she says.

Although she has never heard Benjamin’s cries, she feels she already knows him. She has journeyed from their Kempston home near Bedford to King’s College for one day every week of her pregnancy. At the hospital, she watches the baby on a scanner as he undergoes a complex series of tests. Two albums full of blurry scanner pictures chart Benjamin’s development from seven weeks after conception. Cherry can locate every limb and facial movement from them.

‘To me, it’s like looking at normal photographs. He’s a very strong, fit, healthy baby.’

Cherry Roomes, who says she is talking to us because she wants to help other childless couples, is clearly remarkable, but so then is Dr Kypros Nicolaides, a consultant in foetal medicine and head of the Harris Birthright foetal research centre at King’s. It is he who has refused to be beaten by Cherry Roomes’s problems and, as a result, his relationship with the couple has become intensely close.

She finds it difficult explaining the almost primal instincts that urge her to keep trying and for putting the crushing pain of bereavement behind her, the instinct that has driven her on in the constant, dogged struggle to bear a child that comes from herself and Geoff.

In 1986, convinced they would never conceive, she and Geoff adopted baby Charlotte, then aged 15 months, and a cerebral palsy sufferer. ‘I had two sons already and we had adopted Charlotte, but I felt it would complete the family to have one child that we shared, one of Geoff’s. ‘To be honest, you blank out the pain. You just put it at the back of your mind. If you dwelled on it, you couldn’t cope. If you thought about it, you wouldn’t ever try for another one.

‘I haven’t carried all the babies to the end. A lot of my miscarriages came early. It is a lot more upsetting to carry a child 20 to 35 weeks and then lose it. Your immediate reaction is ‘I’ll never do it again’. But eventually you get over it, because time heals. But it doesn’t get any easier each time one dies.’

She found the death of Eleanor (who was severely handicapped) her worst experience. ‘She may not have been the sort of child that most people want, but we loved her. Her death was desperately painful for us. Nothing could be worse than that. I don’t think I’ll ever get over that completely. I’ll never forget her. We talk about her daily. Her photos are still around.’ With the exception of the death of her first baby, she has seen all of her offspring. ‘I’ve always asked to see them, to hold them, to look at them. They’re not people if you don’t look at them. They have to have identities. If they don’t have identities, there wouldn’t be any point. ‘I have photos of the little ones who have died. You’d be surprised how early a foetus has features, you’re not looking at some horrendous red blob. The photos help you to grieve for the baby.

‘At no time when we have lost a baby have we screamed and yelled and cried in front of Charlotte. You keep your grieving behind closed doors. My husband goes to church every week. I don’t go at the moment, because I’m not the right shape. But we do have very strong religious beliefs. We believe in life after death. Hopefully somewhere our children are all together.’ Dr Nicolaides say: ‘People may think she is mad and I am mad, but I am only trying to do what my patients want. And if that is to help them have children, then that’s what I do.’

There have been five haemorrhages during the pregnancy. During one of them, the Roomes phoned Dr Nicolaides at home in the middle of the night. ‘I just told them to get down to the hospital as fast as they could and I met them there,’ he says. ‘She was all right. She is a very brave woman.’ It was Dr Nicolaides who developed the bone marrow transplant technique which had to be carried out before the baby developed its own immune system, just 12 weeks into the pregnancy when it was less than three inches long. Marrow from Mrs Roomes’s hip was removed under local anaesthetic. It was purified and injected directly into the wriggling baby’s thimble-sized stomach using a hollow needle. The idea was to make him start producing his own rhesus negative blood.

Cherry explained: ‘Benjamin hasn’t got the same blood group as me, which was the idea of the bone marrow transplant.’

It didn’t work. It reduced the rejection process, but Cherry’s blood is still attacking the baby’s red cells. Now, the blood transfusions from Cherry not only top up his blood supply but also confuse his mother’s immune system so that it does not try to attack the growing baby.

‘Now it seems my body doesn’t recognise the baby as totally foreign, so it’s not having an all-out, vicious attempt at killing it, which has happened with my other babies. It’s only a half-hearted one,’ she says calmly, showing little of the emotional stress that must mark each minute of her day.

The transfusions carry their own deadly risks.

‘You never know with each transfusion if it’s going to kill him,’ she said.

‘The last one two weeks ago obviously created a strain on his heart. He was very quiet for several days afterwards, but I could feel him wriggling so I knew he was alive.

‘There is still one more transfusion to go before the birth. I just have not to think about anything going wrong. I have total trust in the team at King’s and I have to think they’re going to get it right.’

Her two sons Grant, 22, and William, 17, from her first marriage survived because the rhesus incompatibility was less severe.

Last year, Dr Nicolaides, who has been their mentor since 1985, offered them new hope with the experimental marrow transplant.

‘I have to believe him,’ she says. ‘It doesn’t take anything away from Charlotte and the boys that we want to have one last try.

‘At the moment, I’m the only one who’s agreed to have this treatment done. But if they don’t have people who are prepared to try, then they are never going to progress.

‘If we can get help and help others at the same time, I think that’s good.’

My own sex education was scant. My mother presented me with a leaflet on how banana flies do or don’t copulate. Later, on asking: ‘Mummy, what’s an erection?’ the reply came: ‘It’s when they put a building up.’ Most of my useful sex education took place in the playground.

However, explicit sex education lessons can be tricky both for teacher and pupil. So videos such as The Lover’s Guide and Seeds of Love could serve a useful purpose at school and beyond.

After watching these two videos, I do not believe they will make any valuable contribution to sex education. The Lover’s Guide is the longer of the two. Dr Andrew Stanway, looking like some suburban dentist with a peculiar hairline, dodgy teeth and badly dubbed words, introduces it. He says he wants to try to get people talking about sex, to banish a little ignorance, guilt and fear. It opens with hairspray-ad couples bouncing through the fields with tinny music.

The tone is naive, the voice-over condescending. The video ranges from boring to truly dreadful with its unintelligent commentary.

We’re served everything from explicit oral sex to intercourse with tinkling background harp – the elevator music is relentless – and commentary that sounds as if it comes from a management training video of How to Get the Best Out of Your Department. All under headings like Arousal, and Fantasy.

Seeds of Love comes as a welcome relief, not least in its mellifluous voice-over. It is much more like a traditional biology lesson. ‘Ignorance of our sexuality is a major contributor to sexual difficulties in later life,’ says Dr Russell Reid, a consultant psychiatrist who wears a white coat and treats psycho-sexual disorders.

His video covers the spectrum of pre-marital sex, promising to look at homosexuality, gender issues and so on in future films. It starts with shots of multiracial kiddies and moves on to five-year-olds playing doctors and nurses; a look at the developing stages of sexuality, mostly in what would appear to be well-dressed middle-class kids who grow up to live in Docklands flats and frolic only with their clothes on until they’ve gone up the aisle.

Whether a video is helpful for sex education must be disputable, but at least this one is more tasteful, gentler, more considered and intelligent, more sympathetic and without all the ghastly music.

There’s a police car outside the hospital tonight. In front of it, an alcoholic sits on a plastic chair, can of Special Brew in hand. His friend – a man with a savaged face – goes into the hospital, pushing through the transparent plastic swing doors.

This is the scene in casualty at King’s College Hospital in Camberwell one recent weekend night. It is one of the busiest accident and emergency departments in London.

It’s a deprived hospital in a deprived area, but is known for its excellent nursing and medical care. And it was here that they just had the Walworth Bell pub shootings – six shootings – six acute emergencies in one hour, and with new doctors who had been in the job for only three days. It’s 9.30 pm and already there is a queue of walking wounded that will take at least a couple of hours to deal with. A sign on the cream walls says: ‘There is a . . . hour wait to see the doctor. Emergencies seen first.’ The empty space has been covered with blank card.

The recent record time for someone waiting in casualty for a bed was 26 hours – with a fractured leg. But at the moment, things aren’t too bad. And people seem resigned to long waits.

The casualty patients – anyone who is not acute – queue on benches in front of a partition. A blurred and soundless TV is set up high and on the floor are cigarette stubs, drink cans and litter. A baby is crying: staff say they try to see children in half the waiting time. Alongside the infant, a cardiac case, with deathly face, is wheeled down the corridor. Just inches behind the casualty queue, the other side of the screen, are six patients lined up on stretcher trollies. One woman writhes in agony with renal stones. She has an ochre-yellow face.

Next to the trollies, in this smaller than small casualty area, people are examined in one of three curtained cubicles – discussing their problems with the corridor – or one of the three cubicles. Nearby is the emergency room, where they take the unconscious, diabetic, cardiac, asthmatic and ‘trauma’ victims – for example stabbings and shootings – who need to go to theatre.

There’s room for five here, but in the last few months they’ve been accommodating eight – more than 100 beds were closed last year due to financial restraint. If someone dies in casualty, it is here (with perhaps an asthmatic child to the left and a chap with stab wounds to the right) that the relatives come to view the body behind curtains.

The nurses take calls on the emergency red phone – one RTA (road traffic accident) and a young man who has been critically beaten up. Yet tonight they say it’s really quiet.

Behind the reception area, out of the view of patients’ eyes, there is a blacklist on the wall of regular hospital abusers. And on the door there is a memo concerning a bogus female doctor who is operating in the area. An Asian man with a public school voice and what looks to have been a bottle smashed over his head comes to reception. His ear hangs off. ‘Human bite,’ the receptionist writes on his form. His boyfriend bit him. They refused even to be admitted to the same accident and emergency, so his lover has gone to Guy’s.

It’s 10.30 and the tramps have started to arrive for the night. Two dossers are fast asleep on the cushioned bench in the hallway. The nurses sometimes let them sleep off their drink on the trollies behind the screen: rather that than the men go out and injure themselves.

Wiflred is a regular and this is his second home (whether his first home is a fixed address is unclear.) He doesn’t come to be seen by a doctor, and brings his dog and squirrel and bottle of meths. If a fight is going on, he protects the staff.

Now they’re bleeping security. A man with a shaved head and a tracksuit, late forties, is punching fisticuffs in the air. He’s drunk and with a face full of aggro. His friend got beaten up, so he wants to bash up the nurses. Someone calms him down. Then he proceeds to stand in front of every trolley that they try to wheel through. He tells the nurse that he’s come to the hospital because he wants to become a Christian. Then he lies on the floor, head down on the red tiles, in front of reception.

‘Come on, go and sit in the corridor,’ says one of the ambulancemen. The aggressive man paces, threatens to beat up the staff, lolls his tongue out at the nurse, red eyes rolling, and hits his head. (It later turns out he has a psychiatric history – as do many of the patients who make their way across the road from the Maudsley.) At 2.30am, a staff nurse attempts to discharge him, medically fit. Her voice is rising – and he is jerking himself off through his tracksuit while she talks to him.

The nurses rush around and despite the stressed working conditions, there’s an amazing feeling of dedication and supportiveness. Morale may waver according to the bed situation, but the nurses are in reasonable spirits. To alleviate the problems, the hospital opened an emergency admissions ward with 20 beds in August, which cuts down emergency queuing. They are also planning a rehabilitation centre, which will free up even more beds.

At 11.35 three undertakers, grim faced and charcoal suited, come in to pick up a body. A boy pushes up against the reception glass. ‘I’ve got bad sunburn,’ he says. A woman arrives: ‘I think I’ve sprained my wrist.’ In emergency casualty, a policewoman emerges from a cubicle. She’s wearing a plastic apron. The staff are pressurised and she used to work in A and E – an unusual occurence, this – so she’s helping clean up the body of a young boy battered to death. The sister says she sees about one serious assault a week. Back in the reception office, a policeman is on the phone. ‘We’ve managed to identify the body, it’s Mark . . .’

Outside, a teenager keeps getting up from a trolley. He has overdosed on heroin. ‘I want to go ‘ome.’ The security guard keeps bringing him back. They’ve admitted one overdose each night this week. ‘Fackin’ ‘ell,’ he says. ‘You take too long to see me around ‘ere.’ Later on he walks out, on his fifth attempt. ‘Oh let him go,’ says the nurse. ‘We can’t keep on watching him.’

An ambulance has just knocked down a pedestrian. They bemoan the fact that the vehicle is now going to be off the road for three hours. The 999 calls are stacking up. They’re legally allowed only one patient in an ambulance – but a nurse says she saw seven getting out of one vehicle after a fight on New Year’s Eve.

Sid is one of the community of regulars. He has duly medicated himself before arriving. ‘Me and me mate was taking all sorts of pills.’ He has a cross tatooed on his forehead and a look of permanent mourning. He perks up to tell about the time he came to have his spleen taken out. That was when someone ‘who used to be a friend’ beat him up. Sid tells his war story with relish. He appears really to enjoy life – and its attendant attention – only when he’s ill. Tonight he’s in because he rode his pedal bike into a stationary vehicle when cycling around a corner .

His apparent enthusiasm is matched by that of Mr and Mrs Blidi, an Algerian couple, with their 22-month-old daughter Hannia. She wears Moslem head dress. ‘We all been here regularly,’ says Mr Blidi. ‘We go here, Guy’s or Westminster.’ Hannia fell down when she was in an aeroplane. She sleeps through her parents’ concern. One family bought their child in because she was having nightmares. The trouble is, GPs won’t go out in this area at night.

Nearby, a dear old lady – 90-plus with hennaed hair – lies wrapped in a red blanket. She looks spirited and her feet – bare and gnarled – protrude. She’s fallen over. The air smells deeply dank, of feet and the strong and acrid smell of anxiety sweat. There is no air conditioning. ‘Damn fool thing to do,’ her daughter, who lives with her, bellows. ‘What were you doing? Playing football?’ The daughter, wearing brick-coloured shorts and a vindictive expression, paces up and down. ‘People will think you’re loopy. They won’t be far wrong.’

It’s 3.45am. A lady who was mugged and has no money sits waiting for some coins from petty cash before she can go home. Inside, the nurses who work a nine-hour 23 minute shift remain. Outside, the police car has gone and three empty wheelchairs stand discarded.