By JULIE MIDDLETON
Chris Whitaker's stomach was slashed open by a knife-wielding intruder who had attacked his daughter.
He was stabbed nine times in the face, chest and stomach as he fought off the man who had attacked his daughter in the adjoining motel bedroom. One of the slashes slit his stomach open so widely he was forced to hold his own intestines in.
But Chris Whitaker, 58, cannot bring himself to waste anger on his assailant, Keith Terepo, a Flaxmere orchard worker, who was sentenced to 10 years' jail after the March attacks.
"It's very sad that a young fellow like that with no previous convictions can stuff his life up completely. I find that rather a disappointment."
Whitaker, of Taranaki, was with daughter Phillippa, now 23, in Hastings to support her in the Horse of the Year show.
He was awakened about 2.50am by her screams: Terepo had taken a long serrated knife from the kitchen and held it to her throat. She had suffered a badly cut tendon between the thumb and finger of her left hand as she tried to fend him off; Chris started thumping him, but didn't realise there was a knife until blood starting pouring into his eyes and Terepo was fleeing: "I was extremely lucky to be alive." Chris was still alert as he was wheeled into an operating theatre, but recalls thinking that it was the first time in his life "I wasn't in control of my own destiny". The ebullient Whitaker, owner of a civil engineering business in Taranaki that employs 80 people, is quick to talk about what happened and claims it did not affect him emotionally. Physically, he says, he is fine, except that nerve damage has left his forehead "dead".
But he does admit to reassessing his priorities after the incident: "I was working too hard."
He now works four days a week rather than five at his "pretty high-pressure job", which deals mainly in petrochemical projects, and spends more time on his hobby - a 60-head Hereford cattle stud.
"I'm backing off the stress levels."
But he says the impact on his family was dramatic. Phillippa, who has just finished an architecture degree, moved lodgings several times seeking greater security.
All three of his children - the others are Frances 27, and Rachael, 30 - become very security-conscious; Frances has bought a watchdog. Wife Terry, 52, was "traumatised" at how close husband and daughter came to losing their lives: "It's had a lot of effect."
Nine-months on from out of the blue knife attack
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