Mother-of-two Becky Mulcahy has recounted the horrific attack on her by her partner’s trusted friend, Brent Gilbert, 35, on September 11 last year.

It started when she answered Mr Gilbert’s knock on her front door. Then he asked if she had any prescription drugs or cash to give him. When she said none, she said Mr Gilbert allegedly became enraged then he stabbed her right between the eyes, and in other parts of her head. “I got seven in the face, two in the top of my head,” she said. Ms Mulcahy was stabbed over 20 times.

She added that the attack happened in front of her two children — six-year-old Shelbie and eight-year-old Lachie, who has autism. She said that Mr Gilbert held the back of her head, put a knife to her chest and that’s when Lachie came over the top. Lachie picked up a tyre lever and belted the attacker.

The two children helped Ms Mulcahy attempt to get to the next door neighbour’s home, with a downhill slope by helping the injured mother make it to the doorstep. “The whole way there I knew I was dying in front of my kids,” she said.

Ms Mulcahy spent the next four days in a coma at The Alfred Hospital.