When Terry Stevens did not come home from watching the rugby on Saturday night, his daughter wondered where he was.

Alice Stevens, 19, called The Windmill pub where Terry had been watching the game and was told that he had been brutally assaulted on his walk home.

Alice bravely spoke at a police press conference yesterday about finding her dad lying in a pool of blood in Worsley Road, Freshbrook, only minutes from their home.

"Please just come forward so I can help get some justice for my dad," the teenager appealed yesterday.

"My dad just didn't deserve this. If he'd had a chance he would have defended himself to the brink.

"But he didn't have a chance to defend himself, and now he feels he let himself down.

"Someone must have seen something or know something. I am determined to make sure whoever did this is caught."

Terry's family have been at his bedside at the John Rad- cliffe hospital in Oxford, since he had a five-hour operation to remove fragments of skull from his brain, leaving him with 50 stitches in his face.

The dad of five's siblings have also been supporting Alice who has been travelling to Oxford to see him daily.

"Life is pretty difficult at the moment.

"I live with my dad and he's not there and when I see him in hospital he's not the same person," said Alice.

"He is just a very strong person and I have never seen him so scared.

"He is very independent and he is not like that right now.

"I fell to pieces seeing him walking home on the CCTV and knowing he could never do that again. My dad was loved by a lot of people. I didn't realise just how popular he was until now.

Both Alice and Terry's sister Teresa McCue, 57, returned to the scene of the crime yesterday afternoon to appeal for witnesses to come forward.

"I could barely look at Terry's head when I saw him in hospital. It's horrific," said Teresa.

"We were supposed to be going to Corfu together on Monday. It hasn't turned out to be much of a holiday.

"That's why Alice phoned when he didn't come home and was supposed to be going on holiday in the morning."

The pair retraced Terry's route from the pub, to the cash machine outside Tesco, then along Worsley Road.

Alice became visibly distressed seeing the pavement where Terry collapsed still stained from his blood.

Outside The Windmill pub, the landlord Paul Davoile had put up a sign updating Terry's friends and other regulars on his condition and urging people to give the police any information.