A BRAVE man who stood up to a vicious gang who left him for dead said he would do the same again – and urged people to help police reclaim the streets from petty thugs.

Stephen Holmes, 45, who uses a mobility scooter, suffered a punctured lung, four broken ribs and multiple bruises in the vicious attack on Saturday night. The whole thing was seen by his young daughter.

Mr Holmes, who suffers from debilitating pancreatitis, was pounced on for telling a group of yobs to stop causing a nuisance near his flat in Falcon Way, Shoebury.

He said: “I want them caught.

“I want people to reclaim the streets from these thugs. There’s far too much of this sort of thing going on.

“People say they’re too scared to intervene, but the police can’t be everywhere all the time.

“People have got to stand up for themselves, and I would do the same again if it happened again.”

Mr Holmes said he had just put his six-year-old daughter to bed when he heard a noise outside the window.

He recalled: “As I opened up to look out, there were three of them there smoking cannabis and crack. One of them came quite close to the window.

“I said to them “you don’t live around here” and one of them spat in my face. I thought ‘I’m not having that’.

“I went outside to tell them to go away.

“As I went outside, three became seven and I said to them ‘I don’t want this round here’.

“I had no chance to defend myself. They were stamping on me, punching me, kicking me on one side and then another.”

“The next thing I know the police came and I ended up in hospital.”

Mr Holmes told of the knockon effect of the life-changing night.

He added: “My six-year-old daughter was woken up and she was watching out of her window.

She’s been having trouble sleeping since.

“It all happened very very quickly, but the effects on me are lasting a lot longer – I’m still in pain now. I can’t sleep, can’t get comfortable. No one has the right to do that, and if they did it before, they could do it again to someone else.”

He said the group were all in their mid to late teens.

Anyone with information about the incident should call Det Con Chris Adam, or his colleagues at Southend CID, on 101, or Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555111.