A MAN who punched a woman in the face in an unprovoked attack in York may have struck again, police believe.

A 33-year-old woman was punched in the face by a man as she walked with a colleague through the Marble Arch tunnel, Leeman Road, last Monday.

The attack prompted managers at York-based Jarvis to urge its staff to be extra cautious.

But only three days later Haxby woman Elaine Davies, who was walking from the railway station past the Le Meridien Hotel, was punched in the side of the face in another shocking and unprovoked attack.

A York police spokeswoman said officers investigating the two attacks would now be liaising with each other and checking out any possible link.

Mrs Davies, 49, said she was unable to defend herself from the attack, which happened at about 6.35pm on Thursday, because she was holding a bag of shopping in each hand.

She said: "I wasn't even aware of him until he turned towards me and punched me in the side of the face and said "that's for staring at me."

"I just kept on walking, thinking 'what's just happened to me?' I turned around and said, 'I wasn't even staring at you', and he said, 'Yes you were'." Mrs Davies followed her attacker into the hotel gardens and watched him go into the hotel but a subsequent search by the hotel manager failed to find him.

She reported the incident to the police and went to York Hospital for X-rays on her jaw, and was lucky to escape with no real damage.

She said: "He missed my jaw by about an inch. I can talk, but I can't yawn or clench my teeth and answering the phone is becoming a problem because I keep forgetting and banging the side of my face.

"I just couldn't believe what had happened, I am so angry that someone could do this to me. It was the first week I had taken the train to work, so it wouldn't have happened otherwise. But I've got to carry on, I haven't got any choice."

A police spokeswoman said: "It could be the same person, they were both in their 20s, and it was a similar sort of thing. Officers will now liaise with each other about both cases."

Updated: 11:07 Monday, April 07, 2003