A FRIGHTENED young mum who is suffering from cervical cancer, has described the terror she felt after a thug hurled a petrol bomb at her door.

The woman, 22, who does not want to be named, was upstairs at her home in Silverston Way, Malmesbury, when the bomb was thrown at her house at 8.50pm on Saturday, December 1.

With her was a 20-year-old friend and her new-born baby and young boy.

The woman said: "I was just about to get in the bath and my friend shouted to me and told me to call the fire brigade. She was just shouting fire, fire.

"I looked down the stairs and there were flames up to the top of the door and I thought, 'oh my God', because the kids were in the house." She said her own daughter was staying with her mum, who also lives in Malmesbury.

The woman said she has an idea who carried out the attack but had no idea what their motive would have been.

"It seems like a warning but it was such a cowardly thing to do, I can't understand it. The fire was there and I automatically panicked and for a split second I had no idea what to do.''

The woman had been discharged from the Royal United Hospital in Bath two days earlier after undergoing an operation.

"Over the past year I have had so many problems, I haven't had a life, and something like this is just one more thing to contend with," she said.

Next-door-neighbour Simon Bennett, 29, a courier, said he was upstairs when he spotted an orange glow out of the window. "The curtains were slightly open and I saw a big flash, an orange glow. I never thought it could be a petrol bomb, you don't expect that around here.''

""My main concern was just getting the fire out, I was worried about my family,'' said Mr Bennett, who has a one-year-old daughter, Zoe.

He said he threw an ice-cream container of water to douse the flames.

PC Martin Alvis, of Malmesbury police, said the fire could have been far worse. "It had the potential of being very serious, especially as there were children in the house. Had it happened later at night it could have caused far more damage and harm to life.''

Sub Officer Pete Newman, of Malmesbury fire station, said: "The potential for a much more serious fire was quite big. There was quite a lot of black smoke.

Witnesses are urged to call Malmesbury police on (01666) 822222.