A man stabbed 12 times in a vicious assault just metres away from a music festival has spoken about the lasting effects of the attack.
Stuart Newton spent the afternoon of Saturday, July 13 2019, at SonFest in Southport, a live music festival, with people he supported who had drug and alcohol issues. He said the day was going well up until a number of altercations between Colin Howard and strangers blighted the afternoon as Stuart needed to step in and ask Howard to calm down.
Later, at around 3.40pm, Howard approached the now 43-year-old and asked if he had forgiven him for kicking off, to which Stuart said yes before Howard stabbed him twice in the neck. Howard began to run from the scene before spotting Stuart still standing.
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He then returned and stabbed him another 10 times across his upper body from behind. Stuart, from Maghull, didn't realise the extent of his injuries until he managed to sit down at a nearby bench on the Promenade across the road from the Royal Clifton Hotel. People sprinted over to help pack the stab wounds, with his clothes quickly becoming saturated with blood.
He said: "Luckily there was someone there who was a first aider so he started packing my neck and other people started coming over and pointed and crying. My beige pants were blood-stained right the way down my right leg and all up the left-hand side of the top I was wearing. People then started to notice all the other injuries so everyone was trying to pack those wounds as well. That's when an ambulance arrived."
He was rushed to hospital, needing eight pints of blood transfused in just 25 minutes on his way to Aintree. When he got to the hospital, Stuart said: "They [police] had been sent ahead to take forensics of my dead body because they expected me to be dead on arrival". He was told by a doctor after he "walked in from the ambulance" that he was just "four minutes from death".
He was rushed into surgery for five hours where they ended up removing his spleen and operating on his lungs. The knife crime campaigner was left with life-changing injuries as a result of the violent attack that led to Colin Howard, of Royal Terrace in Southport being jailed for 11 years with an extended four years on license.
Stuart said: "I've suffered with my health ever since, with me having my spleen removed that almost gets rid of your immune system so when coronavirus restrictions were brought in I was classed as highly vulnerable because both my lungs had collapsed when he punctured them.
"I couldn't wear a mask yet I was most at risk of catching something so I had to self-isolate. It was for a considerable amount of time I couldn't go out and because of the stabbing behind my right ear in my neck, that ruptured the membrane in my ear which has resulted in me losing all hearing in that ear.
"I haven't been able to sleep properly since because of the stab wounds in the neck which have caused damage to my throat muscles so when I go to sleep the muscles collapse and I can't breathe.
"I wake up gasping for breath which has caused brain damage over time. I wake up during the night extremely confused as to where I am as well as being exhausted throughout the day. I have an appointment coming up where I'm looking at getting stints, which is a serious operation. "
He added: "I also had to have all the vaccinations you have as a child again, as well as daily injections. But it's a small price to pay after surviving what happened to me."
Stuart explained how he is happy to be alive and that the "worst day of his life turned into the best" when he realised he could use his experiences to teach others. Stuart now helps out in anti-knife campaigns in a bid to reduce the crime rate across the country, with him now using the three-year anniversary to share how these crimes have life-changing effects on people.
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