THE victim of a frenzied knife attack yesterday told how he thought he was going to die as his attacker was locked up for five years.

Craig Harwood, from Tredegar, was stabbed twice in the thigh and once in the ribcage when 18-year-old Daniel Cullen went on the rampage with a four-inch knife on New Year's Day.

Cullen, of Salisbury Street, Tredegar, was yesterday sentenced at Cardiff crown court to five years in a young offenders' institution.

He admitted charges of wounding with intent, assault with intent to resist arrest, criminal damage and possessing a knife.

Judge Jonathan Durham-Hall told Cullen: "Though you are only 18, you pose a very grave risk to the public."

But Mr Harwood, 27, said afterwards: "The sentence is a joke because my children could be fatherless now.

"If he is a good boy he will do about two or three years. In that time I have to worry whether he will be back in Tredegar, and I have my family to think about."

Mr Harwood was set upon when he tried to intervene in a furious row between Cullen and his girlfriend of the time, Samantha Brooks. "I went over to tell him to get from the house and stop the nonsense, and as he came towards me I pushed him away," said Mr Harwood. "He fell awkwardly, and as I bent over to pick him up he stabbed me three times.

"Considering I had clothed and fed him in the past and been like an uncle to him it was completely without warning.

"I took a few steps back and realised what he had done. "Meanwhile, he was cleaning the blood off the blade and I thought to myself, 'He means business'.

"I could tell he hadn't finished with me, but I managed to run from him around a car because I was flying on adrenaline."

After police arrested Cullen, Mr Harwood realised the seriousness of his injuries when he saw the amount of blood coming from the three wounds he sustained.

He said: "My clothes were sickening to look at because there was just blood everywhere.

"It wasn't until the police arrived that it kicked in how seriously I had been injured."