A BABY girl is suffering nightmares after a thug slashed her while she ate a packet of crisps in her pram.

One-year-old Toni-Lea was left with a three-inch cut to her right arm following the shocking attack in Eaton Road, Tarporley.

Her mother Lauri Steel, 18, was punched in the face and stabbed in her left arm after she went to her daughter’s aid. The attacker drove off with four others.

Lauri, who lives in Eaton Road, said: “We were walking down Eaton Road in Tarporley. Some big guy came behind me and threw me backwards by grabbing me by the shoulders.

“Then he went to the side of my daughter’s pram where she was eating a packet of crisps and sliced her with a blade at the top of her arm.

“I grabbed him by his arm and he moved back with the knife. He punched me across the face and onto the floor. I’m black and blue.”

Then the attacker stabbed Lauri’s left arm. Fortunately, her own knife wound was not serious but her daughter’s wound had to be glued at hospital and the bandage is a constant reminder about what had happened.

But she hopes Toni-Lea will soon be able to put the experience behind her.

“She’s getting nightmares and if we are out she is watching guys walking past her pram,” she said.

“I think it’s just sick. To attack a one-year-old baby is just so low.”

Lauri believes she was targeted by yobs over a petty dispute they had with her boyfriend Alex Armstrong, 20, who is Toni-Lea’s father.

And she feels the people behind the assault are also connected with vandalism to Alex’s van.

Police are appealing for anyone who was on the playing fields at the rear of Tarporley community centre or who used Eaton Road between 6.30 and 7.30pm on the day of the attack, Wednesday, July 23.

Four men in their late teens and early 20s have been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit assault. A 19-year-old man was also arrested but later ruled out of the investigation. Police have not identified the man believed to be responsible for the actual attack.

He is described as a white male, in his 20s, 6ft 2in tall, broadly-built, with shaven hair and face but with stubble beginning to grow back. He wore a black hooded top and green Army-style trousers. He left in a black VX Corsa hatchback with a slightly tinted rear side window.

Anyone with information is asked to call Cheshire Police on 01244 613258 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.