JAY JAY Achebe came to the University of Bradford to study for his degree and have a good time in a city he thought would be safer and nicer than his London hometown.

Now after less than two years of his course, he is preparing to leave Bradford angry and disillusioned after being the victim of an unprovoked knife attack that has affected him and his family severely.

He is angry not only with his attacker and his family, who have never apologised for the attack, but also criticised the judge who gave his attacker a suspended sentence and the university which he says hasn’t given him any support and has not taken any action to deal with knives on the campus.

Jay Jay said he hadn’t been given any justice and the 15-month suspended sentence given to Carlion McCarmock, 22, was no kind of deterrent to others who might think of using a knife.

“He wanted to kill me. I haven’t been given the full amount of justice,” he said.

“I don’t think the judge understood the gravity - he would have killed me if not for my avoidance skills.”

He said McCarmock managed to cut him with the large kitchen knife he wielded when he chased him around the campus in January.

“I thought ‘I’m about to die here if I don’t escape’. I was shouting ‘he’s got a knife’. I thought he might not care about others as well.”

McCarmock, of Scholemoor Road, Lidget Green, Bradford, was sentenced by the Recorder of Bradford Judge Jonathan Durham Hall QC on Thursday.

As well as being given the jail term suspended for two years, McCarmock received a community order and 250 hours of unpaid work.

Jay Jay added: “He was that close to taking my life. What if I had died? What would have happened then?

“It’s unfair he didn’t get a few months in prison. Why not prevent him committing more crime and rehabilitate him in prison? There’s no benefit of him being outside.

“He could kill someone and then go to jail. We have to prevent it.

“There’s no house arrest, he’s not confined. He’s free to walk around.

“Being high on drugs was not an excuse. It was his choice to get that knife to stab me, he had a choice not to try and kill me.

“The fact that he is not in jail is incredible and it is wrong.”

The 21-year-old has had his biomedical engineering course work and exams at the University of Bradford disrupted and now he wants to leave the city where he was happily living until the attack in January.

He said: “It was tough for weeks and months. It’s still tough now.

“It was scary and I’m not someone who gets scared.

“My schooling has been affected. It’s affected me so much.”

He said he was now scared to walk around Bradford on his own, fearful that someone else might assault him.

He had experienced threatening behaviour by other students but nothing like the January incident before.

He said it had given his mum sleepless nights and also affected his younger sisters.

“My whole family is in disarray.”

Jay Jay, who described himself as a bubbly laid-back student, active in his community and keen on football, said the support of his family and friends and his church had helped him get through the ordeal but even now he had not had any counselling.

He also said the incident showed no-one was safe and he criticised the lack of searches by security. “Back in London they search people.”

He said he had had no compensation or restitution for the emotional stress.

“What can I do? I feel powerless.

“What has been put into place? There has been no talk of security measures. Something needs to change.

“I’ve had no counselling, zero.”

He said he was now pushing for a transfer and hoped the University of Bradford would recommend a move to another university so he could get his life back on track.