A MAN who was stabbed by his former girlfriend as he walked along Huntingdon High Street says he still has no idea why he was attacked. Roy Chandler was stabbed by Susan Prior twice in the chest during a daylight attack outside the town s Commemoration Ha

A MAN who was stabbed by his former girlfriend as he walked along Huntingdon High Street says he still has no idea why he was attacked.

Roy Chandler was stabbed by Susan Prior twice in the chest during a daylight attack outside the town's Commemoration Hall.

Last week Prior, 39, avoided going to jail when she was sentenced at Cambridge Crown Court to a nine-month prison sentence, suspended for 18 months.

The cleaner, formerly of Elm Close, Huntingdon, but now living in a women's refuge, admitted unlawful wounding.

She plunged scissors (although Mr Chandler believes it may have been a knife), which she kept in her handbag, into the Commemoration Hall caretaker.

Mr Chandler, 45, was admitted to intensive care with stab wounds in his chest and abdomen. He has since made a full recovery.

On Monday he told The Hunts Post: "I have no idea why she attacked me. No one has ever told me why. All I was doing was getting on with my life again."

His only belief is that Prior might have believed he was involved in her losing some cleaning jobs she had around that time.

"I didn't even know what the jobs were and she stabbed me twice in the chest. I don't think whatever I had said would have made any difference.

"You don't go out carrying a knife unless you are intending to do something to someone. She was determined to do me an injury and she did."

The attack was on April 30 last year - months after the couple had split in July 2006 after living together for two and a half years.

"She finished the relationship. I tried to get back with her but she didn't want to know."

The stabbing caused one of Mr Chandler's lungs to collapse and he need a blood transfusion after losing four pints of blood.

"After the attack, there was blood coming out of me, I felt like someone was jumping all over my chest. The pain was excruciating. I didn't know how serious it was. It was frightening being taken to Addenbrooke's when Hinchingbrooke is so much nearer and they said if it got any worse I would be taken to Papworth."

Following the attack, which was witnessed by several passers-by, Prior went to Huntingdonshire District Council's nearby headquarters and told staff she was homeless.

Mr Chandler paid tribute to the speedy action of the police and ambulance service, which were called by his colleague, Lydia Eldridge, arts director at the Commemoration Hall.

"The police were here before Lydia was off the phone," he said.

He was in hospital for four days and off work for seven weeks.

"I was on four lots of tablets. If it hadn't been for my little boy Thomas, I wouldn't be here today. I would have found the nearest bridge and jumped off it.

"My life was in turmoil. I felt so emotionally drained. I had been attacked and I couldn't understand why someone would want to do this to me.

"But I knew I had to keep going for his sake, when you have a child, you have to get up, they have to be fed, their clothes have to be ironed. It gave me some sort of normality.

"He is my life and soul."

Nine months later, he says he still doesn't like coming into town on a Monday, the day of the week that the attack happened.

"It took a long while before I got back to feeling normal. The court case going on and on meant I couldn't get on with my life."

Mr Chandler added he had mixed feelings about Prior: "I don't want to talk to her and if I don't see her again, it won't worry me. If we pass each other in Huntingdon High Street, I hope she will keep to her side and I will keep to mine."

He also thanked all the people who supported him through the ordeal.

* As well as a nine-month prison sentence, suspended for 18 months, Prior was ordered to undergo treatment for alcoholism.