A MAN who was savagely attacked by his lodger has vowed to fight on and overcome his pain for the sake of the surgeons who reconstructed his skull.

James Daisley, of St George's Lane North, Worcester, underwent 10 hours of surgery after he was beaten with an onyx lamp.

When he awoke in hospital two days after his ordeal, the 50-year-old says he was in so much pain he wanted to end his life.

"I came around but I looked like an aubergine with great big lumps, full of blood and things, sticking out of my head," he said.

"The next morning I woke up and really wished I was dead. It took me days to say don't be a prat- these surgeons have taken days to put me back together."

Mr Daisley spent six weeks in Birmingham's Queen Elizabeth Hospital where seven surgeons worked on his skull. He still requires two more bouts of surgery to fix a metal plate placed beneath part of his face.

"The doctor said he's got to take my face off again to rebuild the metal because it's collapsed," explained Mr Daisley.

"The pain's immense. I won't take the painkillers anymore because they don't work. I just take the pain for so long and then take sleeping tablets and crash out. When I wake up I eat and when I get bored with the pain again I take more sleeping tablets.

"All the pain is the metal and bone mixing. You can't really imagine what it's like."

He was beaten in his home in April by Carl Eades, formerly of Tunnel Hill, who stayed at his home for free. Eades, aged 21, was jailed for five years last week at Worcester Crown Court.

"I've no idea why he did it," he said. "I treated him like a son. He said I was the closest thing he'd had to a Dad."

Despite being unable to recall the incident, and not attending the court case, he has flashbacks.

"I have nightmares when I sleep. I get visions of the attack even though I can't actually remember it because I was asleep.

"But I don't really know all of it - I only have memory of everything from two days later. And that's all I want to remember."

Mr Daisley, who is now blind in one eye and missing several teeth, must battle hard mentally. Before the attack he was successfully recovering from severe depression.

"Now it's like I don't want to go outside the door," he said. "I was getting better but my psychiatrist said how much I've changed. I'm not the same person."

But he remains defiant. "Right now I want to cry but what use is it?" he explained. "Everyone says it's amazing I can put up with the pain but it's all you can do. Otherwise you do the reversal and I'm not going to do that. The reversal is dying."