TOMORROW will be a horrendous day for one Newport mother and her family. A year ago, her six-year-old daughter was attacked and left for dead in a shallow grave in a Newport wood after a Jubilee party.

Phillip Allen Hodges, (pictured) of Malpas, and 15 at the time of the attack, was detained for life last December after being found guilty of kidnapping the young girl and attempting to rape and murder her.

The little girl's mother told us: "I am dreading tomorrow. It is going to be awful. I am just going to make sure that I keep myself occupied so that I don't sit and think about what happened.

"It will bring back so many bad memories that still exist. I just hope that after tomorrow is over we can try to move on."

The trauma of what happened is hard for the family to bear. The child was left covered in blood and mud and earth.

She was unrecognisable to her parents when she was found.

Hodges, now 16, had tried to asphyxiate her. Judge John Griffith Williams told the court he committed acts of "evil wickedness".

But the mother praised her daughter's resilience, saying that her daughter had coped very well since the attack.

The mother said: "She has been really good. She still has the odd nightmare but I just really had to try and make everything as normal as possible.

"I have to let her play with friends, otherwise she would be the one punished and it was in no way her fault.

"Now when she goes to play with friends, she has to tell me where she is going, when and for how long.

"But I don't want to keep her in the house." The mother said that she did not think her daughter would realise the significance of tomorrow.

She said: "I don't think she will realise the actual date, so hopefully she may not be too upset.

"I am happy with the sentence that Hodges received and I hope that it will mean he will never be able to hurt another family like he has mine.

"What happened on that day a year ago not only affected my daughter, but my whole family," she added.

* HODGES was detained for life in December last year after being found guilty of kidnapping a girl of six and attempting to rape and murder her.

The South Wales Argus won the right to identify him after we appealed against a court restriction on naming him - backed by the victim's mother.

We were the only media organisation to appeal to have the boy named. We felt that the attack was so serious and brutal that our readers had a right to know the defendant's identity.

We also felt it would act as a deterrent to other young people who may be involved in crime.