Man "punched and punched" in taxi assault

A SATURDAY night on the town left one man in hospital with multiple facial injuries.

Ian Brooks, 33, of Roedean Road, Durrington, needed facial reconstructive surgery after the assault, which happened as he tried to get a taxi home at the end of a night out in Worthing town centre.

Recovering from surgery at home on Tuesday, he told the Herald: "It knocked me for six."

The incident happened at Chapel Road in the early hours of Sunday, while Mr Brooks and his friend, Stuart Poke, were waiting for a taxi.

Mr Brooks, a civil engineer, said that they waited "ages and ages" for the taxi and when one finally arrived, another man approached it.

He said that it was as he went over to find out if it was the taxi he had booked that the stranger launched into a vicious attack.

"He must have punched and punched '” that's why I can't remember because he knocked it out of me. It wasn't just a case of one hit and then off you go.

"I know there was a load of blood because it was all over my clothes but I can't remember what the bloke looked like." He added: "It's ridiculous. All this over a taxi. All I wanted to know was if it was the taxi I had phoned.

"It's so annoying that he would go over the top. It's stupid, very stupid."

Mr Brooks said he could remember very little about the attack and he was waiting to find out which witnesses had contacted the police. He was taken to Worthing Hospital but later transferred to St Richard's Hospital, Chichester, because he needed specialist treatment from its facial reconstruction team.

He said that when he woke up on Sunday, he got a nasty surprise when he looked in the mirror. "It was bad. Really, really bad. My eyes were totally closed up so I could only see though a squint. My nose was like the letter 'F'.

"My nose was totally broken and so was all of my cheekbone."

Doctors rebuilt his nose and cheek with metal plates and stitched up two cuts by his eyes. Mr Brooks is still suffering from blurred vision and does not know when he will return to work.