A WOMAN has told of her terror after being mugged at knifepoint for £35 and a curry.

Sarah May Philo was walking home when a thug jumped from his car and held a knife to her back while demanding she hand over her bag.

The brave 32-year-old is now using her experience to call for more street lighting in her community.

She believes more lighting could have prevented her assault.

She said: "From the very start I wanted to write to somebody in the council about the street lighting.

“This had been something I wanted to do before the mugging happened - I’d wanted to say to the neighbours and see if I could get them on board.

“I can see all the arguments against street lighting and cameras very clearly: not wanting light coming in your windows, not wanting to be watched all day every day.

“On the other hand, you can’t get around the fact a woman has been mugged with a knife.

“This has been kind of a big nudge and I thought, ‘No, I’m going to do something about this now’."

Last Tuesday around 6.30pm Sarah May had gone out to collect a takeaway order on Duke Street in the east end and needed to lift cash from a nearby bank machine.

She says she felt aware of someone watching her but the man then got in a car and drove off.

After she had picked up the food and was walking home she realised a car was tailing her with its lights off.

The teacher said: “It all happened very fast. He was quick and efficient.

“He switched his lights off before he stopped his car.

“At that point I thought, ‘He’s going to mug me’ because there’s no other reason to switch off your lights while the car’s still moving other than to not draw attention to yourself.

“He got very close to me and all I could feel was this thing in my back.

“His voice was very low and controlled. He said, ‘Give me all your f**king stuff or I’ll f**king stab you’.

“It was so out of the blue. You don’t expect it to happen to you. People are still going home from work at that time.

“I know he’s done it before: he was calm and in control, it wasn’t a first attempt.

“He stole everything that was in my handbag: my phone, my purse, my licence, my cinema card, everything you would have in your bag.

“He also stole my food. That was the surreal bit and if it wasn’t so terrifying it would be funny.

“He said, ‘And your f**king curry too,’ and then I watched him as he waddled off carrying all my stuff."

Immediately after the attack, Sarah May says she was terrified and physically shaken.

She ran the short distance home to be comforted by her boyfriend, Paul, and visiting family.

Sarah May added: “Telling my mum was the worst thing. I was more scared of telling my mum than I was of the mugger because I didn’t want her to panic or be upset.

“I was hysterical when I got home and I collapsed on the doorstep; my legs were like jelly and I was hyperventilating.

“That was the first thing my family saw. I bounced back from that relatively quickly and I was thinking, ‘Right, how do we turn this around?’

“But that image of me sticks in other peoples’ heads a lot longer."

In the aftermath of the mugging, Sarah May says she now finds herself too frightened to walk alone at night.

She said: "It’s had little impact on me financially as he didn’t steal much of financial worth but I can’t walk alone at night, I can’t do it.

“He stole about £35 cash from me but there were things he wouldn’t know what they were that were really precious to me.

“Stuff that is really important that he will have just trashed.”

“I keep physically shaking, even when my head is saying, ‘Don’t be silly’, I just start shaking and I really resent it.

“That enrages me.

“The fear he has put on me is like a kind of stop against all my common sense and logical thinking.

“If he hadn’t been in so much control he could have panicked and then I can’t bear to think what he might have done with that knife.

“That’s not right: people shouldn’t have the right to do that or the opportunity to do that."

She added: “I can see myself through his eyes. I had on my Burberry coat and a nice handbag and my baker’s boy hat, I’d just spent a lot of money on food and I was going home to my nice big flat in Westercraigs.

“He probably thought he had the measure of me and so he felt no guilt in robbing me and then eating my curry.

“I’m not saying I can justify his actions. I think it’s disgusting."

While Sarah May is full of praise for the police, who she says responded quickly and thoroughly, she believes Glasgow City Council could do more.

She maintains that, while there's a serial mugger operating in the area, mobile CCTV vans should be made visible in the community.

Sarah May added: “This has happened in the area and I haven’t seen one council CCTV van. They know this has happened and they have done nothing: it’s bonkers.

"You need to look after people.

“There are several small, unlight parks here where it would be so easy to drag a woman into.

“It’s frightening to think about but I don’t want my brain to go into that dark place, I’m trying to stay on the positive.

“But these kind of attacks, actually it’s not difficult to stop that."

Now she is petitioning for a more permanent solution to the issue of poor lighting in her Dennistoun community.

She wants more street lighting and CCTV cameras in a bid to deter others from carrying out similar attacks.

Sarah May said: “I hate the word ‘victim’ and I don’t want to be labelled as a victim. It’s actually a bit rubbish to have this victim label forced on me - I don’t want it.

“I didn’t want to tell anybody because I couldn’t keep saying the words, ‘I’m fine’, to everyone all the time. I just wanted it to be over.

“It’s so simple and easy to invest a little bit of the budget into installing more street lights or putting up more cameras.

“They spent millions of pounds on the Commonwealth Games and yet there’s areas of the city where we need simple things like street lighting that have been completely missed out.

“The police said it happens in areas that are quiet and dark. I mean, it looks like this guy followed me home. He chose his moment because the area was dark and there was no street lighting.

“I keep thinking that if I had chosen another area where there were more people and there was street lighting then it wouldn’t have happened."

Sarah May hopes there will be appetite in the community to support her call for better monitoring of the area.

She added: “There’s really lovely people in communities that are really supportive and kind.

“This is a great neighbourhood full of really friendly, caring people - the ones who help you with your bags or my neighbours who came round to drop off wee presents at Christmas.

"Even Dennistoun BBQ has given me a £30 voucher to spend after they heard what happened to me.

“It only takes one bad person to wreck everything.

“To stop them we need to utilise all that goodwill." 

To support Sarah May see her petition at www.change.org/p/glasgow-city-council-light-up-glasgow

Police ask anyone with information into either attack to call officers at Pollok Police Office on 101.

A Glasgow City Council spokeswoman said: "As there have been no recent requests for street lighting in this area we suggest the petitioner contacts the council to allow us to respond appropriately.”