steven's Blog

The picture that says you can invade an Englishman's castle...but you'll never break his spirit (or his family!): Flanked by his loyal daughters, victim of Polish thugs tells of his appalling ordeal

His misshapen and bruised face is shocking evidence of the vicious beating he endured at the hands of four masked raiders.

But academic Paul Kohler is nevertheless wreathed in a broad smile, testimony to his indomitable spirit.

Flanked by two of his four beloved daughters, one of whom was also caught up in the horrific attack, he is clearly proud of the family he fought so valiantly to protect.

And his courageous decision to allow pictures to be taken of him sitting up in his hospital bed, his blackened, swollen eyes little more than slits and his cheeks and forehead blotched with dark purple, sends out an unambiguous message to his attackers – whatever you do, his spirit will not be broken.

Sitting by his side, his 24-year-old daughter Eloise appears serene, with little to suggest that only a few days ago she had been forced to hide under her bed, terrified that she too would become a victim of the attackers.

In a second picture, she shares a joke with her father, reducing him to what must be painful stitches of laughter, while her mother Sam, who was threatened with violence by the intruders, stands by the bed like a tower of strength.

The images were taken after the Cambridge-educated law lecturer and father of four spoke in graphic detail for the first time about the brutal attack that shocked the country.

When he opened the door of his six-bedroom house on Monday night, he had been enjoying a tranquil evening playing board games with his wife.

The last thing he expected was that within moments he would be battling for everything he most loved.

Mr Kohler, the head of law at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, said he thought only of protecting his family as he fought back furiously against the intruders.

He said: ‘I regard my home as my domain and suddenly these men break through the defences.

‘Within my domain I had this hostile force and I felt incredibly protective. I had my family there and this whole notion of an Englishman’s home is his castle – that was the feeling. I realised I’d stupidly let into my house someone who was out to create havoc, and there’s a real sense of fear and panic.

‘But I felt I had to defend my home and my family. I really was fighting for my life.’

Mr Kohler’s ordeal, during which he suffered severe blood loss and injuries that could permanently damage his sight, began at 10pm on Monday when he heard the doorbell ring at his £2 million, three-storey Edwardian property in the normally peaceful suburb of Wimbledon, South-West London.

Unusually, he said, he had won several rounds of the intellectually challenging game Lost Cities, and his wife Sam had gone upstairs to ‘lick her wounds’.

His daughter Eloise and her boyfriend Geraint had earlier had supper with the couple but had gone upstairs to watch television in her room, a piece of good fortune that probably saved the family from an even worse fate.

His other three daughters, Saskia, Bethany and Tamara, were not in the house, and Mr Kohler, who was alone downstairs when the doorbell rang, said he assumed it was one of his daughters’ friends.

He said: ‘I could see a silhouette of someone through the glass – it’s pretty badly lit out in the hall – and it looked just like the height and haircut of one of the girls’ mates. So I opened the door and this guy appeared to fall through the door.

‘Before I even thought what’s happening I had blows raining down on me. They hit me before they said anything. Then the one at the front started saying, “Where’s the money?” It was a dark hallway, but from what I could see of them they had covered their faces.

Then they pushed me away from the door so I wasn’t making sound out into the street.’

Image:homecoming dresses under 100

The bloody and relentless assault continued as the men punched and kicked Mr Kohler almost 20ft along the hallway until he was at the door of his dining room. ‘They were pushing me to the dining room and I was trying to defend the stairs a bit because I knew my family were up there,’ he said.

‘I was punching away and thrashing away. I couldn’t punch like them, but I was doing my best and shouting and they were trying to shut me up.’

He recalled: ‘I shouted out “Sam, ring the police!” – a move he said he instantly regretted because it alerted the burglars to Sam’s whereabouts. In response, one of the four thugs ran upstairs, forced Sam to lie on the floor and stood over her for the duration of the burglary.

After that Mr Kohler was careful to not reveal that Eloise was in her bedroom at the top of the house.

His quick-thinking daughter, hearing the commotion, was able to lock her bedroom door and call 999. She then turned off the light before crawling under the bed with her boyfriend and speaking to the police in hushed tones.

Speaking for the first time, the Edinburgh University graduate said: ‘I honestly thought my parents had been stabbed. I thought we were going to die.

‘That’s all I kept thinking, “We’re going to die.” I was so scared. The policewoman was trying to calm me down, but I was just sobbing.’

Meanwhile, Mr Kohler had been ‘blinded’ in his left eye by the force of the blows.

In the dining room, where he was surrounded by his familiar furniture including a piano and cocktail cabinet, the attack took an even more menacing turn. He said: ‘One of the men pushed me back so I was lying in the doorway of the dining room and jumped on top of me and was just beating me remorselessly with his fists.

‘Another one was behind me kicking me in the head, and another held my legs down.

‘One of the first punches I received in the hallway had caused me to lose all sight in my left eye, so it meant I was blindsided on one side and couldn’t see anything coming.

A copper flew through the door like the cavalry -

Paul Kohler

‘One of them was kicking me from the side and I couldn’t see them coming. He was just smashing at my face and the power of the blows was just phenomenal.

‘The guy who came in first was grabbing at my groin and trying to grab my testicles, but it was impossible in that position while I was kicking.’

However, the moment that really terrified Mr Kohler was when one of his tormentors pulled out a roll of gaffer tape and attempted to gag him.

He said: ‘I was biting at it because there’s something about if you’ve lost all your physical freedom and then they try to take your voice as well, which is your only defence mechanism – you panic.

‘So I bit at the tape and bit at it every time he tried to put it on and it stuck together. So he gave up doing that.’

At this point, Sam tried to escape from the man who was standing over her upstairs, causing two of Mr Kohler’s attackers to run upstairs to his aid.

Mr Kohler’s remaining assailant then attempted to put his hands over the academic’s mouth and nostrils, prompting Mr Kohler to try to break free, but then the two other men came back down.

‘Then I was facing all three and one of them hit me again on my blind side, so I was down again,’ he said. ‘Then the ringleader picked up the heavy, wooden door of the cocktail cabinet, which is loose and has come off. And he knelt above me, holding the door above his head, saying, “Tell me where the money is” – and threatening to bring it down on my head, and I’m bracing myself thinking he’s about to hit me with the door.

At that point a copper just flew through the door like the cavalry. He grabbed at the guy who was kneeling on my shoulders and pinned him down.’

When his wife and daughter emerged unhurt, he said there were ‘tears of emotion’ but also bewilderment over what had happened.

The devastating assault on Mr Kohler lasted only eight minutes, but it left the house covered in blood and was described by the detective inspector investigating the case as the ‘most brutal’ he has seen in 20 years.

Mr Kohler said he was ‘unrecognisable’ with swelling on the side of his head the size of a football, while blood flowed from his mouth and eyes. He was unable to open his eyes for two days.

Doctors at the hospital to which he was taken had to carry out an emergency transfusion because he had lost so much blood because of internal bleeding, putting a strain on his heart. He now faces reconstructive surgery on a cracked eye socket that could still could leave permanent damage to his sight.

Mr Kohler said they were still bemused about the motive for the attack, especially as little was taken and their house is close to a police station.

He said: ‘There are only two possibilities. It’s either a mistaken address or someone has made the stupid assumption because we own a small bar in Covent Garden, the Cellar Door, that we have a large amount of money in the house.

‘But most people buy their drinks with credit cards. We have a few hundred pounds at most that comes into the house and goes straight to the bank.’

Two Polish men have appeared in court and were remanded in custody but police are seeking the other two suspects. Both are believed to be aged between 20 and 30 and from Eastern Europe.

Detectives have released CCTV images of one of the suspects running through Wimbledon Theatre car park. He can be seen removing the surgical gloves which he wore during the attack.