The family of a young woman who was stabbed repeatedly in a supermarket described her yesterday as kind, gentle and caring.

Lucy Yates, 20, who was attacked in a Somerfield branch in Littlehampton, West Sussex, on Tuesday afternoon, was in a “serious but stable” condition yesterday. Deborah Yates said that her daughter’s condition had improved, and police said that she was to be moved from Southampton to a hospital nearer her home in Worthing.

Miss Yates’s family said in a statement: “She loves life and this is shown in her strength to have survived this brutal attack.” Her family said that she “would never hurt anyone”.

Her mother said: “She’s so strong, and she’s making an amazing recovery. She’s a living miracle.”

Samuel Reid-Wentworth, 21, was remanded in custody yesterday morning by Worthing Magistrates’ Court, accused of attempted murder. Mr Reid-Wentworth is alleged to have carried out the attack “by stabbing the victim approximately 17 times”, Peter Lytle, for the prosecution, said.

Mr Lytle added: “He is a man who, the police tell me, has a history of being diagnosed as a schizophrenic.” Mr Reid-Wentworth, of Bognor Regis, will appear at Lewes Crown Court on September 29.

A Sussex NHS organisation that helps patients with mental health, learning disability and substance abuse problems issued a statement yesterday saying that it knew the accused man. The Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust said that it was “very shocked to hear of this terrible incident”.

The organisation said: “We can confirm that the person who has been arrested is known to our services. We are unable to comment any further at this stage.”

People who were in the supermarket at the time of the stabbing said that customers had thrown objects at Miss Yates’s attacker to try to stop the frenzied assault and that a store security guard had eventually restrained the man.

Mary Linnington, 61, of Littlehampton, described the scene as “complete bedlam”. She said: “People suddenly started screaming and shouting and the staff were ushering us out the doors. It was really busy and there were loads of kids around because the schools had just finished.”

Another customer, Bonnie Brown, a 54-year-old grandmother, described how customers had tried to help the victim. She said: “Me and some of the other shoppers kept pressure on her wounds. She had wounds all over her body, several on her neck.

“She was conscious but wasn’t saying much. She was just lying in a pool of blood.” Customers and staff were seen consoling each other outside the store.

Police said yesterday that they believed Miss Yates did not know her attacker. The weapon, a small knife, was recovered after a forensic scientific examination of the scene the day after the attack.

This month another former patient of the Sussex health trust, Benjamin Frankum, was sent to Broadmoor Hospital after he was found responsible for the murder of a 34-year-old landscape gardener last year. Frankum had broken into Daniel Quelch’s parents’ house in a Berkshire lane and stabbed him 82 times.

The judge found Frankum, who suffered from mental illness, unfit to be tried. Tests after the killing found that he had stopped taking his medication nine weeks before the killing.

Frankum had been assessed before the killing but was found not to be a danger to the public. At the time of the attack he was living in supported accommodation in Littlehampton.

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