A doctor who was stabbed nine times in a random knife attack has forgiven his attacker and said he “feels a connection” with the man who nearly ended his life.
Dr Adam Towler, a former trauma specialist from Bristol, was stabbed repeatedly by Chanz Maximen, with one of the blows missing his heart by two centimetres.
The attack began after Maximen, who was then 17 years old, knocked on Dr Towler’s front door in Clifton, Bristol and shone a light through the letterbox on Oct 30, 2019.
Dr Towler, 52, initially thought the knock was a Hallowe’en prank before Maximen pulled him into the road and began plunging a knife into his chest.
Maximen was jailed for life with a minimum term of 12 years on Wednesday, but his motive for the attack remains unclear.
At his sentencing hearing, Dr Towler, who now develops medical software, read out an “extraordinary” victim impact statement in which he forgave his attacker and said he was not “upset or angry”.
Expanding on his comments on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he said: “The fact we’re here talking today, I got lucky. I’m living a quite normal life, a comfortable life. My immediate outlook is rather more comfortable than Chanz Maximen’s position.
“I guess also in some odd kind of way I felt a sense of connection with him. He and I were two individuals connected in this event.
“I don’t feel angry with him. What happened, happened. Neither of us can unwind the clocks on those events, so now I have the rest of my life before me and he does, too.”
