Acid victim faces attacker

Andreas Christopheros before and after he was attacked with battery acid. Photos / Facebook

An acid attack victim who was left blind and his face horrifically scarred has spoken out about his ordeal and the moment his attacker tried to apologise.

Briton Andreas Christopheros' life was turned upside down when he answered his door to a man who threw battery acid at him in what turned out to be a case of mistaken identity.

The attacker, David Phillips, got the wrong address for a man he sought revenge on for sexually assaulting someone close to him.

When Phillips and Christopheros, 30, came face to face in court, the attacker reportedly "gestured to his heart" and said "I'm sorry".

But for Christopheros, who spent the next year rebuilding his life with the support of his family, Phillips' apology was simply too little, too late.

Speaking to UK show This Morning, Christopheros said "He was very uncooperative with the police and only pleaded guilty at the eleventh hour when I was in the witness room to give evidence.

"We walked past and he gestured to his heart and said 'I'm sorry'. To be honest it fell on deaf ears, we just walked straight past. It didn't make any difference."

In December 2014, Phillips drove almost 500 kilometres to Christopheros' family home in Cornwall in the UK. Knocking on the businessman's door, Phillips threw battery acid in Christopheros' face and shouted: "This is for you mate."

Christopheros had been working from home in a new family business when he saw Phillip's vehicle pull up.

"'I opened the door as you would normally then, one motion, bang, 'This is for you, mate'," Christopheros told the show's hosts.

He said the pain was "inexplicable".

"It's nothing like I have ever felt. You can't even comprehend but I knew straight away that it was acid. My T-shirt dissolved. It was like a waistcoat. There was no doubt in my mind."

Screaming to his wife, Pia, who was upstairs with the couple's two-year-old son, Theo, he told her to call the police and an ambulance while he doused himself in as much water as he could.

Before falling into a coma for four days he managed to tell paramedics what he could recall about the man and his vehicle.

Flown to a specialist burns unit, Christopheros asked that all the mirrors in the room be covered so he didn't have to look at himself.

It wasn't until he was surrounded by close friends that he felt able to look at his new face. "I thought if I'm going to breakdown I'd rather do it among friends that on my own. It was alright. It was what it was."

After coming to terms with his appearance, his next hurdle was his young son, he told This Morning.

Afraid of how Theo might react, the decision was made to keep the toddler away from the hospital for the first two months.

He worried his son would no longer recognise him, but was delighted when he embraced his father with a hug.

"He clung onto me for four to five minutes and wouldn't let go."

Phillips was sentenced to life in prison after admitting guilt last October and confessing Christopheros had done nothing to provoke the attack.

With Phillips behind bars, Christopheros is focusing on his future with his family.

He's already endured a number of skin grafts, but has several more medical procedures to get through.

"Aesthetically I'm not too bothered but I need things to work," he said. "At the moment I've got issues with my eyelids and my nose and my mouth. I'm back in very shortly for further work on my eyelids."

- nzherald.co.nz