A HALE Barns surgeon who avoided death by three millimetres after being stabbed in the neck is calling for a review in how his case was prosecuted.

Last week, a jury at Minshull Street Crown Court cleared Ian Rooke of attempted murder after he stabbed Nasser Kurdy in the neck with a kitchen knife.

Rooke, aged 28, told police he wanted to kill someone and attacked Mr Kurdy, aged 58, as he was the first suitable victim he randomly came across.

He walked into the Islamic Cultural Centre in Hale, Cheshire, about 5.30pm on September 24, last year.

The defendant admitted the attack, but denied he was trying to kill Mr Kurdy.

Jurors were shown police body camera footage of the officers arresting Rooke.

In it, he tells police: "I stabbed the guy. Some guy randomly in the street. My intention was to kill the guy."

The defendant said at the time of the attack he had not taken his anti-psychotic drug in the previous two days.

At the time, Rooke was on medication which was supposed to stabilise his mood and prevent paranoia as a result of his personality disorder.

After the attack, Mr Kurdy, a surgeon at Wythenshawe Hospital, retreated inside the building, grabbed a chair to defend himself and went outside to confront Rooke, who then fled.

Father-of-three Mr Kurdy suffered a 6cm wound to the left side of the back of his neck.

The knife had missed his jugular vein and spinal cord by millimetres and Mr Kurdy was taken to hospital for stitches.

He immediately forgave his attacker and called for peace at the time.

Mr Kurdy told the Messenger this week: "The actual nature of the attack was completely unprovoked and it was mentioned in the court that he 'jumped me' literally.

"I didn't even see him coming. When I looked at the CCTV afterwards, he just followed me into the grounds of the Islamic centre. The actual stabbing was obscured by a couple of bushes.

"I said how I felt at the time with the pain that I had.

"I have forgiven the guy and I am delighted he had a fair hearing. Being in the court I heard the case both for and against him and it was a fair trial.

“I was called a ‘lucky man’ in court. The judge said that, and I thought what did he mean by that? Did he mean that somebody wanted to stab me and did it go through enough to harm, or did it go through with somebody with harmful intent and they missed?

"To me, they are two opposite things because I am a muscular skeletal surgeon.”

“And I told one of my friends, who is not a doctor, how I would have died. If you stab somebody in the heart, it stops and that is instant. If you stab somebody where there is a vessel, they bleed to death, but in the act of bleeding, you lose consciousness.

"If you are stabbed at the third cervical level, you cannot breathe, you are not dead, but you cannot breathe and you actually suffocate over the next few minutes and that was where the knife was and that was never mentioned in court.

"So the jury and others thought the guy had just nicked me in the back of the neck.”

Mr Kurdy, who has been an orthopaedic surgeon for 30 years and a consultant for 20, added: “I have experienced this injury and I think that it’s my duty to go back to the CPS and take them through my case properly.”

Rooke, who admitted wounding with intent and possession of an offensive weapon, will be sentenced on May 25.