8:27am Tuesday 16th September 2008
By Simon Carr
A TEENAGER has spoken of the moment a bottle was smashed in his face in a gang attack after a night out with his girlfriend.
Student Martyn West, 17, needed 23 stitches in his face after the brutal assault as he walked home from a railway station.
He had spent the evening with his girlfriend in Shirley, Southampton, and was back in Romsey when he was beaten by three drunken teenagers.
The trainee chef was walking along Canal Walk at the turning to Mercer Way when the gang approached him and asked if he had any cigarettes.
When he said he did not one of them said: “Let’s smash him.”
However, another said: “No, he’s all right.”
He went to shake Martyn’s hand but as soon as he grabbed it he punched him in the head and another broke a beer bottle across his face.
Martyn, who studies at Eastleigh College, said: “I was scared and I think if I had been knocked down they would have just kept kicking me while I was on the floor.
“I used to walk past groups of 20 men and not think anything was going to happen. Now I don’t want to go out at night at all.”
Martyn, of Romsey, added: “Because one of them was being all right they lulled me into a false sense of security.
“When I felt the bottle smash against my face all I could think of is I have to get away and I ran off.”
The gang chased him for a few yards but soon gave up and he was able to get to a nearby friend’s house in Withy Close and knocked the door covered in blood.
The friend’s dad immediately called an ambulance, the police and Martyn’s mum Isobel.
Isobel said: “It is the worst phone call I have ever had.
“I screamed down the phone and went running round his friend’s house in my nightie.
“His face was swollen and he was covered in blood.
“The people must be like animals, there is no other way of describing them.
“I think if he had not had the instinct to run they might have killed him.”
The attack left Martyn with a number of stitches over his face, his jaw is too painful for him to eat still while he was also left with injuries to his hand.
Police are investigating.
Anyone with information can contact them on 0845 045 4545.
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