Father badly burned in acid attack says he will not be overwhelmed by injuries
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Version 0 of 1. The victim of an acid attack has spoken out for the first time to insist that, while his injuries will haunt him for the rest of his life, they will not overwhelm him. Andreas Christopheros, 30, had sulphuric acid thrown in his face when he answered the door of his home outside Truro, Cornwall, to David Phillips, who had mistaken him for someone else. He lost the sight in one eye, has retained only partial sight in the other and has to wear a protective mask over his face, which was badly burned. Speaking soon after Phillips was sentenced to life imprisonment for the attack last Friday, Christopheros said he had feared never being able to see his young son again. “And if I did, would he recognise me?” he said. “Would I look like a monster to him? The idea of not being able to see him crucified me. Not to be able to watch him change and mature. To see him on his first day at school. “All the things a parent wants to witness as their child grows up,” he told the Mail on Sunday. “Of course what I wasn’t aware of then was that Pia, my wife, had been told by doctors that the chances of my surviving the attack at all were very, very low. For her, the greatest fear was not that I would lose my sight, but that I would lose my life. “Theo took one look at me, then ran to Pia, burying his head in her arms. Then he looked back at me, held out his arms and shouted ‘Daddy, daddy. It’s you.’ He launched himself into my arms and clung on to me like a little monkey. He wouldn’t let go for about 40 minutes,” he told the paper. In court, Phillips’ lawyer argued that the sexual assault of a member of his client’s family – for which the attack on Christopheros was a misguided attempt at revenge – had “put him in an impossible position”. There was in fact no connection between the two men, and Phillips admitted it was a case of mistaken identity. Christopheros said he found that “insulting”, adding: “There can be no justification for what he did. There have been times when I have howled with hysterical tears. But I am never going to allow what happened to me define me. “My injuries will haunt me for the rest of my life. But I am determined they are not going to overwhelm my life. Never.” Christopheros described the attack that took place in December 2014 and its immediate aftermath. “I’ve never felt pain like it. My eyes, my face, were on fire,” he said. “I stumbled down the hall, heading for the kitchen. I knew it was vital to get water on my face as soon as possible. All the time I was screaming at Pia to phone 999. My shirt was disintegrating, I could feel my face melting.” His wife Pia, who was also burned by the acid when she stepped in it unwittingly, said it was “truly shocking” when she saw what had happened to her husband. “It was as though his face was dying. Melting.” She was told that his injuries were so severe that he was unlikely to survive the night. But he pulled through and now looks at his injuries as a “hiccup, a major one, but slowly I have learned to expect what to see when I look in a mirror”. |