message yesterday for Bermuda's residents: "Don't walk alone at night.'' The English waitress, who suffered a broken jaw in the attack, said she wanted "to tell the whole Island'' about her horrible experience.

But she was scared her attacker would come after her if she did. The Southampton woman insisted neither her name nor employer be disclosed.

"I don't want him to know anything about me,'' she told The Royal Gazette from hospital yesterday, where, with her jaw wired, she was recovering from surgery on a general ward.

Police said yesterday they had made an arrest in connection with the attack.

A 24-year-old Sandys Parish man is in custody and will be appearing in court later this week to be charged, Police spokesman Sgt. John Dale said.

Police had launched an "all-out'' hunt after the attack on Christmas Day, calling in a "team'' of off-duty officers to start house-to-house inquiries on Between The Walls, a narrow lane off Pitts Bay Road in Pembroke.

The woman had been walking along the lane in the early evening of last Friday when she was set upon, beaten and robbed.

She had been going to a friend's house for Christmas celebrations. Police on Monday described the attack as "heinous''. "We are treating this incident very seriously and going all out to find the attacker,'' Sgt.

Dale said.

The incident was the worst of several violent attacks over the Christmas weekend.

A 74-year-old man was jumped and robbed on Horseshoe Road in Southampton. And two Hamilton workers were confronted by two would-be robbers, one wielding a baseball bat and the other carrying what was thought to have been a firearm.

But the two workers escaped harm when, after they shouted for help, the men ran away.

Police also attended a number of domestic assaults over the Christmas holiday.