Well it should have been the busiest night of the year for us in the taxi trade. But it didn't pan out that way.

Our 15 year old son was stabbed in the street by a nasty little weasle on the saturday night and was rushed to hospital. I spent that night in A&E with him. He had to stay in for two nights overall as he had to have an operation-the wound was only half an inch from his kidneys and it was bone that prevented the blade from penetrating his spine and paralysing him for life. As a mother, I can't describe how that makes me feel.

But my boy is made of strong stuff and thankfully he is home now and although sore, is making a good recovery

For us there have been financial implications. We are self-employed and so if we don't work, we don't get paid. The days spent at the hospital have meant that I personally haven't worked at all. It also meant that there was no-one around to answer our taxi telephone number so we had virtually no bookings at all on New Year's Eve. This is unheard of in the taxi trade. Our son came home on the afternoon of New Year's Eve so H and I hit the streets that night but for us it was very poor business-wise. We managed to get some ASAP's (As Soon As Possible's) but most people were understandably sensible and booked their taxis in advance. We know for a fact that we missed in excess of 25 calls on the 30th of December alone. But because we could not answer the phone for three days, we had no bookings to speak of.

In the grand scheme of things, our son's welfare is the most important thing without a doubt. No question of that. And we are so relieved that he will make a full recovery. But we need to pay the mortgage to keep a roof over our family's head and to put food on the table. So the actions of that disgusting excuse for a human has had far wider implications than probably even he would have realised.

And the best bit? The police have stated that our son will have to be 'arrested for affray' as soon as he is up to it. We are astonished by this. Our son and his friends were jumped on by two men who parked their vehicle in our (no-through) road and lay in wait for them. As my son tried to push his attacker off him, the man stabbed him in the back.

So basically my son has a hole in his back and is lucky to be alive at all (let alone that he isn't paralysed) but he will be charged with affray (street fighting) the same as the man that stabbed him.

Talk about a stab in the back from the law. Makes me sick.