Dad-of-two describes how London terror attacker Khalid Masood ‘stuck a 12in knife into his face and sliced his nose in half’

A DAD has said Khalid Masood once plunged a 12-inch kitchen knife into his face.

Danny Smith, 35, suffered horrific injuries when the brute, then known as cocaine dealer Adrian Elms, attacked him 15 years ago.

The blade sliced his nose in half and ripped through his tongue.

But violent thug Masood escaped a jail sentence for attempted murder after a jury acquitted him.

Scaffolder Danny said: “I only knew him three days and he tried to kill me.

“I don’t know what path his life took for him to end up carrying out a terror attack in the heart of London.

“But back in 2003 he tried to end my life. We’d met in the pub and we got on really well. But we had a small falling-out.

“He came back out with the knife and punched me.

"The handle hit my forehead and the knife went straight through my nose, my mouth and my tongue.

“I fell down and I'm trying to get up but he’s trying to stab me in the back four times.

“I thought the knife was going in my body.

“But a part of it had already snapped off in my face and luckily I was wearing a thick jacket which saved my life. I jumped up and ran as fast as I could. I ran so fast my trainers flew off.

“I had blood all over my face and several inches of the knife was still embedded in the the bottom of my mouth.

"I could feel the knife was still in my mouth and my nose was flapping about on my cheek in the wind.
"There was so much blood it was like someone had turned a tap on from my face.

He was still behind me shouting ‘I’m going to f***ing kill you’. But I ran and ran and he eventually stopped following.”

Danny was rushed to hospital in Eastbourne, East Sussex, where he had more than 50 stitches put in his face.

Masood ended up in a next-door hospital bed with a wound to his hand caused by the knife attack.

Police arrested him and he was put in a cell at Lewes prison to await his trial at crown court for attempted murder.

Danny said: "The nurses who looked at my face later said they had never seen something so severe.

"They couldn't get the broken blade out of my face so I just pulled it out myself with a set of their pliers.

"They had to cal in specialists from Uckfield Hospital to rebuild my nose.

"I had more than 50 stitches on my nose, tongue and bottom lip.

"They basically had to stick my face from the inside out.

"The pain in my tongue was horrendous."

Masood appeared at Lewes crown court later that year.

His defence claimed Danny fell over and impaled his own face on the knife.

Masood was acquitted of attempted murder and it is believed he was given six months for possession of a knife.

But because of the amount of time spent in jail awaiting trial, he was freed.

Danny said: “Even the judge couldn’t believe it when the jury came back not guilty. He should have gone to prison.

“If he’d been convicted he would only probably just be coming out of prison now. I was in court with my mum for the verdict.

“When he walked free, he turned round and growled at me and my mum with a smirk on his face. I never saw that man again.

“He was a dangerous, dangerous man.

“He was one of the nastiest pieces of work I’ve ever come across.”

Danny, an unlicensed boxing heavyweight champion in the South, added: “In a straight fight I’d have kicked the s**t out of him but he came at me like a coward carrying a knife.

“He had these big bug eyes with a scar down his face and a horrible voice that made your hair stand on end.

“He most definitely wasn’t a Muslim when I met him. He was a crook. He was the kind of person you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley.”

Masood had a reputation as a violent knife-carrying crook and mugger in the early 2000s in Eastbourne.

He was first convicted of criminal damage in 1983 and was given two years in jail in 2000 for GBH.

He got six months for possession of a knife in 2003, believed to be the attack on Danny.