It is hard to believe the dignified woman with the big smile when she calmly tells me how she was savagely attacked and beaten, by her own husband and sisters-in-law.

This woman has survived and has pledged to cry no more. She has every reason to smile now after coming through an ordeal that has left her scarred for life.

The deep physical scars she shows me are shocking, but the way she speaks is inspiring. Because this woman suffered about a year of horrific abuse at the hands of her husband and his family before starting a new life in Keighley.

Now, she wants to speak out against domestic violence and highlight the help available here in the hope that it will encourage women in similar situations to escape.

The big smile fades when she recalls how she arrived in Bradford in 1997 from Pakistan, to get married and moved into a house with her husband, his mother and father and his seven sisters.

"It was okay for about two months. But soon, when he came back to the house at the end of the day he beat me up because of what his mother and sisters would tell him about me," she explains.

She doesn't know why his family tried to provoke the violence but remembers that she endured almost daily beatings.

"In all it lasted about ten months, and even when I was pregnant he would hit me frequently," she says.

Just two weeks after her baby daughter was born the new mother was beaten so badly by her husband and his seven sisters that she was in hospital for two and a half months.

"It was all of them. I ran for the door when I knew what was happening but was kicked down like a football. I was left drenched in blood and the neighbours heard my screams and contacted the midwife," she recalls.

Before the midwife arrived, the family made her hide her blood-soaked clothes but she couldn't hide the bruises and gashes to her face.

Afraid that she would be deported and terrified of the shame that would bring to her family, she told the midwife she had fallen down the stairs.

She was then forcibly dragged upstairs and locked in an attic for two days, in agony without food.

The family controlled her with fear and she refused to co-operate when the persistent midwife returned to help her and she hyperventilated with the stress.

She was only allowed outside to hang out the washing and finally, unable to take the pain and pressure any longer, she begged neighbours to call an ambulance.

After two and a half months in hospital, she had a massive blood clot on the side of her lower back removed, which has left her with large permanent scars.

During her time in hospital, her daughter was only brought to see her on three occasions and the family threatened her as she lay in her hospital bed.

Her sister in law told her: "We broke one leg, we can break the other as well."

She was pressured into returning to the family home but things hadn't changed.

She struggled on as before for two or three months.

"They started to deprive my daughter of milk and clothes to punish me. I went to tend to my daughter when she was crying but my sister in law wouldn't let me get to her, she spat at me and started hitting me," she remembers.

Neighbours saw her at the window and phoned the police. The police didn't have an interpreter so she was unable to communicate with them, but they brought her to Keighley because she had a brother and an uncle here.

That was two years ago, and after a long battle and a lot of help from Domestic Violence Services (Keighley) her big smile is back.

MP Ann Cryer's office put her in touch with Domestic Violence Services (Keighley), which has offered her all kinds of support every step of the way.

They helped her to deal with finance, immigration and housing issues, paperwork, solicitors appointments, social services, language problems and offered invaluable emotional support.

She can't praise the service enough: "It's very important. Without it, it would be really difficult for women like me. It is so important to get the message that there's a service out there that women can access.

"They have helped me to get everything I wanted, a home and a life with my daughter without fear and abuse. I don't cry any more, there has been enough crying."

The Asian women's support worker at Keighley said: "This is a story that makes my job worth it. She was so timid when she first came here and to see her laughing now is amazing.

"We want women to know that we can really help them. They don't need to live in fear and be abused."