A man who suffered a savage attack by a thug armed with a crowbar has told how it has devastated his life, and how he had been told by medical staff who treated him that he was lucky to be alive.

Kevin Stephenson, 26, bears permanent scars to his face after he was repeatedly struck with the metal bar by Ryan Marshall, who he said he had known from school.

Marshall was jailed for three and a half years last Friday for wounding him with intent on June 24 last year, and for punching a woman in the face on Christmas Day, 2008, in an unrelated attack which had been fuelled by drink.

Speaking to the Telegraph & Argus yesterday Mr Stephenson said he had been at a friend’s house in Longfield Drive, West Bowling, helping to move a broken-down van, when he was suddenly attacked from behind by Marshall.

He said: “I didn’t see him, I just got hit on the back of the head.

“I felt a zing, I thought I was having a heart attack because I didn’t know there was someone behind me.”

He said he felt three or four blows to the back of his head before Marshall was stopped by Mr Stephenson’s younger brother.

“If my brother hadn’t stopped him he would have killed me,” said Mr Stephenson, of Bradford.

The former labourer, who is not working because he says he still suffers panic attacks following the assault, said that before Marshall fled, he ran at his father with the weapon, and knocked over a pregnant woman.

He said his young daughters, aged seven and three, had seen him, “bleeding like mad” after the attack, and that he had been told by medical staff who treated him in hospital he was fortunate to escape with his life.

“The man who was stitching me said it was lucky I have a thick skull or I’d be dead,” he said. “He couldn’t believe I was still here.”

He added: “I’m still suffering from the stress of this now. A lot of his (Marshall’s) mates live in my area, and I don’t want to go out. I’m still on anti-depressants.

“Sometimes my cheek jumps with the nerves, the doctor said one more centimetre and I would have lost my eye.”

The Court was told last week Marshall, 26, of Courtyard, Bank Top, Bradford, had believed Mr Stephenson had been “badmouthing” him to his cousin – a claim vehemently denied by the victim, who said: “all I said was, ‘he just wants to calm down’.”