Knife victim’s plea for sanity after another attack in the Lothians

A TRAUMATISED victim has called for tougher sentences for knife thugs after being left for dead in a horrific Leith Walk blade attack.

Office worker Peter Moyes was left in a coma and scarred for life after being slashed in the neck – 15 years after his dad was killed with a blade outside a Leith pub.

Jealous Gary Modiak, ex-partner of Mr Moyes’ girlfriend, was jailed for seven-and-a-half years last week for his frenzied attack on Mr Moyes last July.

The scar on Peter's throat. Picture: TSPL

“There are a lot of things going on right now with six or whatever stabbings in the last week,” said Mr Moyes, 25, from Leith. “People should get ten years minimum just for carrying them because I think the majority of the public are against it, obviously.”

He was left fighting for life in intensive care at the Royal Infirmary after Modiak’s frenzied attack at the Mousetrap bar.

Mr Moyes had been out watching a World Cup game with a pal when Modiak targeted him with a craft knife.

“I came round in hospital and had lost ten or 11 pints of blood. I had to have emergency transfusions. My heart rate was the minimum it could go to. I was pretty lucky I suppose.”

Peter, shortly after the attack. Picture: TSPL

Mr Moyes told how the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes were the faces of his loved ones including mum Gillian and girlfriend Lynne McGarry.

“I just came-to, looking around thinking ‘what’s gone on?’. People told me not to worry because my face had swollen up. I think at the time I was unrecognisable like I’d put about ten stone on – I can look back on it and laugh now.”

Despite a sickening gash across his neck, together with wounds to his hand, shoulder and face as he tried to fight off Modiak, Mr Moyes made a miraculous recovery.

He was out of hospital within days but still needs cosmetic surgery on his neck wound – while the emotional scars are more difficult to fix.

“I was head-down for a while – I was more comfortable being in my house anyway. I didn’t leave my house for weeks.

“It brought up things to do with my past and my father who passed away as well. It was the same sort of thing but a bit more severe.”

Mr Moyes’s dad, also Peter, was knifed to death by a young troublemaker after helping throw him out of the then JJ’s bar in Queen Charlotte Street.

“I was staying at a family friend’s and the police came round to tell us what happened,” said Mr Moyes, who was just ten at the time. “They didn’t go into much detail at the time but I was devastated.

“I used to go to the football and that with my dad,” added the Hibs fan. “I lived with him at the time and it was just me and him so that flipped my world upside down. This happening to me now just feels like the same thing. I’m obviously still standing but they’re both traumatic.”

Mr Moyes has flashbacks to the attack and is woken by nightmares – even walking down the street is wrought with terror. “I tend not to read situations well. In coping with this I misread things,” he said. “Because my natural reaction in situations might be extreme, people don’t understand.

“Even if I’m walking around a corner and someone’s coming at the same time from the other side, I can be quite jumpy.”

For months pubs were no-go areas and he shunned socialising – an enforced lifestyle change he has turned into a positive.

“I don’t really go drinking much anymore. I’m actually doing four charity runs this year for Scottish mental health.

“I’m doing it to show people who are suffering they can do anything that they put their mind to.”