A mother-of-four told today of the moment her husband confessed to carrying out a frenzied knife attack which left a teenage girl with 35 stab wounds.

Ann Haywood described how her husband Ian walked into the family home carrying a blood-soaked knife and told her: "I don't know whether she's dead or not."

The teenage girl was stabbed 35 times in the face, hands and neck and needed 143 stitches for injuries which one doctor described as the worst he had ever seen.

Specialist Derek Harborne told the Old Bailey the 17-year-old girl's injuries were "in my experience, one of the worst repeated stabbings I have seen".

Mr Harborne, consultant at the A&E department of the Princess Royal Hospital, Haywards Heath, said a neck injury "could have been fatal" and some of the 35 stab wounds had cut to the bone.

Unemployed Ian Haywood, 37, of Willow Way, Hurstpierpoint, denies attempted murder, attempted rape, false imprisonment and two offences of attempted robbery.

Christine Laing, prosecuting, said the girl and her boyfriend were held up by a powerfully-built man who tried to rob them after threatening them with a gun and knife.

He fired the gun, hit the 19-year-old boyfriend over the head and locked him in the boot of his car in the Ditchling Common car park on January 18, 2001.

Miss Laing said he ordered the girl to strip when she said she had no money or mobile phone.

When the teenager resisted what she thought would turn into a rape attack, the man stabbed her until she "played dead".

She was taken to hospital where she received 143 stitches. Haywood was arrested after his wife, Ann, contacted police.

The teenage girl has told the court of her ordeal.

She said: "I thought he was going to rape me. I curled into a ball.

"He leant forward and I felt the first stab. And then he did it another two times and then I went numb.

"He just kept going and going."