A NIGHT out with friends turned to horror for 23-year-old Barry Kelly, when he was glassed in the face in an apparently motiveless nightclub attack.

Mr Kelly needed 18 stitches to his cheek and nose and another six in his eye after the attack in the garden of Mad Jacks on The Bridge, Chippenham, in the early hours of Saturday.

Speaking just days after the incident, Mr Kelly revealed doctors have told him he will be scarred for life and may lose the sight in his right eye.

He now faces weeks of worry and a course of infection-fighting drugs.

Mr Kelly said at 1.30am he stepped into the club's courtyard to intervene in an argument between two friends.

"I managed to split up the two who were arguing and was talking to one of them, when something suddenly hit me in the face," he said. "At first I thought I had been punched.

"I landed on the floor but as I got up I realised blood was pouring from my face and that someone had actually thrust a broken beer glass in my face.

"When I realised I had been glassed, my immediate thought was, there's so much blood am I going to die?"

Within seconds of the attack Mr Kelly was attended to by a club doorman, who was trained in first aid.

He was rushed to Chippenham Hospital in a police car and on to the Royal United Hospital in Bath, where surgeons operated to remove glass fragments from his face and eye.

"My friends have told me that my nose was literally hanging off," said Mr Kelly. "I still can't really believe it has happened."

"I do not know the man who did this and I cannot comprehend what would make him to do this to me."

David Broome, who runs Mad Jacks with business partner John Jefferies, said: "Everyone has been very shocked by this sickening attack."

PC Zac Newton, of Chippenham police, called the attack on Mr Kelly an apparently motiveless and horrific incident.

A 19-year-old Chippenham man was arrested at the club and bailed pending further inquiries. Witnesses are asked to contact the police on (01249) 654455.