By Holly Robinson

FILM student Ben Chancellor says he is lucky to be alive after being stabbed in the face and neck while on a backpacking tour of Australia.

Mr Chancellor, 22, of Bradford on Avon, was attacked by two teenagers as he walked home to his rented Bondi flat from a friend's house in the early hours of Saturday morning.

Australian police are treating the attack as attempted murder because it was unprovoked and the injuries show direct stab wounds rather than slashes.

One of the offenders threatened Mr Chancellor with a knife or piece of glass, while the other punched and kicked him.

Mr Chancellor, who completed an HND in film before travelling to Australia, said: "They just started gesturing. The next thing I know, I was getting a blow to the neck and everything went dizzy and I felt weak. It was at that point when I put my hand to my neck and my finger slipped inside, I realised I'd been stabbed."

He said two girls who were with the attackers intervened and without their help he would not be alive.

Mr Chancellor said: "Without them, I might not be so lucky. The doctors said a few millimetres to the right or left, it would have hit a main artery and it could've been game over.

"It certainly left me shocked I'm a little bit paranoid, a little bit shaken up. Hopefully that will fade in time."

The former St Laurence School pupil appealed to the girls to contact the police as the attackers' next victims may not be so lucky.

Mr Chancellor has been in Australia for six months and was travelling with his girlfriend Lyndsey Geddes, 19, also of Bradford on Avon. She is currently in New Zealand.

Mr Chancellor was taken by ambulance to St Vincent's Hospital in Sydney where he had stitches before phoning his parents, teachers John and Jean Chancellor, at home in Regents Place, Bradford on Avon.

Mrs Chancellor said: "It is every parent's worst nightmare. I was absolutely horrified and wanted to be there with him. I couldn't believe that teenagers were carrying knives. You just don't expect it."

Mr Chancellor said his son had no immediate plans to return home and would be spending Christmas with his aunt in New Zealand and was due to return to Britain shortly after that.