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Love of County helps fan's fight for life

5/ 3/2008

A DIE-HARD Stockport County fan has told how the thought of watching his beloved team once more spurred him into a "miracle" recovery – after a teenage thug viciously beat him within an inch of his life.

Mark Witter, 33, was left brain damaged and unconscious in intensive care for three weeks after a sickening attack in which he was punched to the floor, kicked and had his head twice slammed in a door outside Hollywood Towers, on Hardman Street.

At one stage, a priest was called to read his last rites as Mark, who suffered a fractured skull and bleeding from the brain, lay motionless in Cherry Tree Hospital.

But when he finally woke, County’s progress was among the first things he asked about and his determination to return to Edgeley Park helped him fight back from injuries many thought would finish him off.

This week, Christopher Maguire, 17, of Shirley Grove, Adswood, was sentenced to seven years detention for the attack, which happened last July. He was on licence at the time and had 11 previous convictions, including affray, witness intimidation and theft.

Mark said: "I’m a major County fan. Edgeley Park is the best ground in the world and there was a time when I never thought I’d see them play there again. It was the thought of watching their games that got me up and going again.

"One of the first things I asked was how County were doing. And I remember watching TV in hospital and finding out they beat Brentford 3-0. I screamed ecstatically - it gave me a timely boost.

"The 24 hours before the attack is still a blank. I had to learn how to walk again afterwards and I still have to do things slower and get pain. "When I first came out of hospital, at times I wished I was dead because of the pain, now I’ve come to terms with it."

Maguire was found guilty of assault occasioning actual bodily harm in December and sentenced at Minshull Street Crown Court this week. Upon his release from a detention centre, he will spend five years on licence and Judge Leslie Hull lifted reporting restrictions usually in place for under 18s so he could be named and shamed.

The attack happened when Mark arrived at Hollywood Towers in the early hours on July 21 to visit a friend.

He was unable to get into the flats and Maguire arrived shortly afterwards, at which point there was a confrontation followed by the attack.

Shortly after the original incident, Maguire came back and slammed his victim’s head into the door for the second time.

Mark, of Ancoats, who has lost balance and mobility in his left side following the attack, said: "It was a fitting sentence. I was almost dead, my aunty got a priest to read the last rites.

"He (Maguire) is scum and a dangerous character who almost killed me, but I’m still here to see him get his punishment."

Det Con Paul Walls, from Stockport CID, said: "This was a vicious unprovoked assault that has left the victim permanently injured.

"It is a miracle that Mark is still with us today as it was touch and go at the time if he would even regain consciousness."

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