A political activist has tracked down the man who saved him from a group of racist attackers 25 years ago.
LBC presenter Maajid Nawaz was attacked by a group of skinheads at a fair in 1993, when he was 15.
The hero, named “Matt”, confronted the thugs. However, they then turned on him, stabbing him repeatedly.
“Matt”, who is white, was stabbed and beaten with knuckledusters. Mr Nawaz launched an appeal to track “Matt” down a week ago.
The viral Twitter appeal was successful and Mr Nawaz is now planning to meet him on Thursday.
He tweeted: “I’m in shock. We did it. After 25 yrs, at 16:39 today I got a message via my @LBC page from this man. He read @KatieFee452’s @Essex_Echo article.
"I spoke to him just now. We aim to meet Thursday. He wants to be anon for now. He was army. Hence his courage. He’s a hero. He saved me.”
Mr Nawaz, a British-born Pakistani who stood for the Liberal Democrats in Hampstead and Kilburn in the 2015 general election, later told LBC the incident “filled him with hatred for mainstream society”. He also said it caused him to distance himself from white people.
Of “Matt”, he added: “I was speaking to my missus and she had heard something on a podcast about somebody tracking somebody down. I decided I should try and find this man.
“One of his friends saw the story in the local paper and sent it to him and then he contacted me. I managed to pluck up the courage to call him. I didn’t know all this time he was an army man. It is so, so touching.”
