EXCLUSIVE: 'He'll never be the same again' - dad of man attacked outside Oldham nightclub speaks out

The dad of a young man from Oldham - who was attacked outside a local nightclub - has told Key 103 his whole family feels unsafe in the town.

Martin has been speaking out after a wave of violent attacks in the town in the last few months.

His son Thomas was left with serious head injuries and a broken knee after he was jumped by a gang of men outside Liquid nightclub in Oldham Town Centre.

"If he hadn't bent his head, it could have hit his jugular and it would be a murder investigation."

"He is lucky to be alive because the doctor said if he hadn't bent his head, it could have hit his jugular and it would be a murder investigation.

"We had just come back from holiday and were told he'd been stabbed twice in the head and so we rushed straight to hospital. We found out and we didn't even know how bad it was, we just ran straight to him.

"He's just a bit peed off because he can't do anything.

"It was just a nightmare waiting to find out what had happened to him. He was in hospital for five days, so it was pretty serious.

"He's now on morphine because of the pain from his knee, he broke it in three places trying to get away.

"As a dad it's just horrendous. You see this happy go luck lad and now it['s just changed his life. We don't even know if he'll be able to play football every again, and he'd played it since he was five years old.

"The police aren't doing enough, I don't think. We think there should have been more - I went to the club and asked for the CCTV and then I asked other businesses nearby to send in their footage. I went into the restaurant nearby to get theirs off them, but they said they had already recorded over it. If the police had been on the ball we could have got that and maybe someone could have been caught."

"We don't want it to become like London where things are out of control"

"It's not safe out there anymore. You want to feel safe, not under threat. It's always been a fine place to live but in the last 18 months there have been all these attacks. A lot of people are hearing about them and they're not coming to Oldham anymore."

The situation has reached such a scale that local MP Jim McMahon has demanded a meeting with Greater Manchester Police to discuss it, and to call for action from officers.

"People rightly want to know that those who're responsible for these incidents are held to account.

"I'm consistently a supporter of the police but we do need to make sure we're getting our share of the resource - recognising that they're stretched and that are fewer of them than there were before - but this is a really important issue for the community and so we are pushing for more visible police officers around the Metrolink stations and the town centre. We also need to deal with some of the magnets that are attracting people to come in to town to cause trouble - the reason why Freehold Station is such a problem is because of the derelict Hartford Mill which acts as a playground for people who want to cause mischief and bother."