A woman who was repeatedly stabbed as a little girl has been reunited 20 years later with the woman who saved her from the attack – thanks to a regional daily.

Kitrina McKenzie has succeeded in her bid to find Sarah Hardie after approaching the Edinburgh Evening News in a bid to contact her.

Ms McKenzie was just nine when she was abducted from the street outside her grandmother’s home, forced onto a bus and taken to a spot at a leisure centre to endure the vicious attack by 11-year-old Darren Cornelius.

Two decades on, she contacted the EEN a month ago in a bid to find the woman who dialled 999 and helped her after she was left for dead.

Kitrina McKenzie, left, and Sarah Hardie

Ms Hardie read the appeal and has since come forward to meet the girl she saved.

Ms Hardie, 46, told the EEN: “I’m glad we did and I believed Kitrina when she said she had managed to get closure by meeting.

“I was extremely surprised to read Kitrina’s plea after all these years last week, all I did was what anybody would or should have done at the time.”

According to the EEN, Kitrina said she was “relieved to have finally found Sarah and hopes to move forward with her life”.

Editor Euan McGrory told HTFP: “The ordeal which Kitrina survived was truly horrific. Everyone who lived in Edinburgh at the time will remember reading about the appalling crime and will probably have wondered at some point what happened to the young victim.

“We were no different and had no idea of Kitrina’s story until she took the brave step of calling us because she wanted to find the hero who saved her life that day.

“She is an inspiring young woman and I am delighted that the Evening News was able to play its part in helping her to do that.

“This is what local newspapers do at their best, harness the power of their mass readership online and in print to bring people together in their communities.”