Updated: A MOTEL manager has told how he feared he would die when a thug shattered his face in a vicious attack.

Michael Brown, 53, who runs the Yorkway Motel at Pocklington with his partner Julia Greenwood, lost his sight in one eye after the assault by a stranger in the motel car park.

He said he was at a loss to explain the attack, saying he and Julia had gone over it time and time again but had been unable to come up with a motive.

“We have only been here for three months and there has not been a hint of trouble in that time,” he said.

“We are both at a total loss as to why this has happened. This sort of thing just doesn’t happen here.”

He said the attack happened after the stranger had walked in and said he had reversed into a Mini Cooper.

Realising it was his own vehicle, he followed the man outside to inspect the damage – but as he knelt down he felt a fierce blow to the back of his head followed by another to his face, leaving him unconscious with two fractured eye sockets, broken jaw, broken cheekbone and broken nose.

Julia, who had been working behind the bar, saw him lying prone on the gravel and he was rushed to hospital, where he underwent a gruelling 14-hour operation to rebuild his shattered face.

He was then given the news he would be permanently blind in his right eye and his face is still scarred, four weeks after the assault on July 8.

He said he had been semi-conscious after the attack. “I thought I was dying,” he said. Julia said she had just happened to look out of the window and seen Michael on the floor. “I ran outside and the scene was absolutely horrific. He was in a terrible mess.

“Someone knows who has done this and we need them to come forward so we can get some sort of closure and start to move on with our lives.”

Humberside Police have released CCTV footage of the distinctive red Vauxhall Corsa with a black bonnet in which it is believed two men fled in after the assault, and have also released an efit of a suspect.

Det Insp Colin Waddington said there was no reason why an innocent man had been targeted and subjected to a sustained, vicious and unprovoked attack, leaving him with horrendous injuries he would live with for the rest of his life.

He said: “It does not appear to be a robbery gone wrong and they did not try to steal Mr Brown’s car.”

* Anyone with information is asked to contact Humberside Police on 0845 60 60 222 quoting crime number 1768755.