This is the .22 bullet that Deanna Contreras will carry inside her until her dying day.

She was shot in the chest at point blank range in the Peel Park pub, Undercliffe, Bradford, in December 1998.

Surgeons tried to remove the bullet, lodged near her spine, during an emergency operation. But they decided to leave it after she went into shock on the operating table.

Yesterday, Stephen Flaherty, the man who shot her, was found guilty of her attempted murder and sentenced to life in jail.

Flaherty, 41, was convicted at Bradford Crown Court yesterday after almost seven hours of deliberation by the jury.

Speaking after the verdict, Mrs Contreras, 33, told the Telegraph & Argus: "I'm relieved that it is all over - for my family and all the other witnesses - and I'm pleased with the sentence.

"I knew what he was saying in court was wrong, but I was sure justice would be done.

"You don't want to see anyone go to prison but he is a danger to society and, at the end of the day, he could have ended up killing me." Apart from the bullet, fired from a Derringer hand gun, she has been left with psychological scars from her ordeal.

And she has found the memory of the shooting at the pub, then run by her parents, impossible to erase.

Sitting at her home not far from the Peel Park she said: "The bullet is there, but can't do any damage. It's imbedded in the muscle and isn't life-threatening.

"The intention was to remove it, but I went into shock on the operating table and the doctors had to get me stitched back up as soon as possible.

"I remember it all. I remember seeing him (Flaherty) with something silver, something shiny in his hand. Then there was a flash

"I felt warmth on my breast, then saw blood on my hand and straight away realised that I had been shot.

"As I fell down I shouted 'I've been shot'."

She says she is plagued by flashbacks and nightmares about the incident.

"I can still see him clearly. At first I saw him all the time and I remember seeing a couple leaning over me and my twin sister Deborah saying 'Come on Deanna, stay awake'."

The bullet punctured a lung and, although it was sheer good luck that it missed her major arteries, the wound caused her to lose six pints of blood.

She was taken to Bradford Royal Infirmary where she drifted in and out of consciousness. As Flaherty went on the run, police set up a 24-hour guard outside her hospital room.

Mrs Contreras, who takes her name from her former husband, did not know Flaherty by name but had seen him go into the pub.

She and her plasterer boyfriend Tony Padgett had not even planned to go out on the night of the shooting.

She recalls: "It was Sunday evening and there was nothing worth watching on the telly."

Mrs Contreras does not know what sparked the row, but remembers Flaherty leaving the pub in a fury.

"The fact that he went home, got a gun and came back, is the most worrying thing."

The incident has changed the once-confident blonde. She has become nervous and does not want to go out as much.

And the sound of the gun shot has stayed with her.

Loud bangs, like a door slamming or a car backfiring, still leave her shaking.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.