West End star blinded in random road-rage attack after thug smashed through car window
27 January 2025, 12:06
A West End star has been left blind in one eye following a terrifying assault while he was stationary at traffic lights.
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Actor Mike Holoway, 63, required stitches in his right eyeball after an assailant shattered his van window with a metal object in Beckton, East London.
The actor, who starred in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat for four years, has revealed that he needed stitches in his eyeball and will undergo three operations over nine months to save his eyesight.
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He told The Sun: "It was 15 seconds of hell. If it wasn't for the witness I don't know if I would still be here.
"I was stationary and I heard banging on my door and pulling of the handle. He began screaming and shouting at me."
The actor said he believed the attacker was holding a metal, weighted object that could have been a knuckle duster.
He said: “This man smashed his fist through the driver’s side window. Straight into my face, it knocked me across to the passenger seat.
“I had to have metallic fragments pulled out of my face.
"You think you know how you can react in these situations. But I saw stars. I didn’t know what the hell was going on.
“By the time I picked myself up and got my momentum, I reached for my phone to take a picture of the reg plate, but he’d gone. He smashed straight through the window into my face.”
The actor was taken to A&E in Essex following the attack on December 18 before he was moved to Moorfields Eye Hospital in central London for surgery after examinations showed extensive damage to his eye.
Speaking about his recovery, the dad-of-two who also starred in cult tv series The Tomorrow People, now faces a long road to recovery.
He said: “I’ve got to have a lens replacement. I’ve got to get a cornea donor. I’ve got to have a cornea replacement.
“My eye at the moment is being held together by six stitches. I’m on painkillers all day, every day for the first five weeks of it happening. It’s a bit of a blur. My wife Emma has been incredible.
“I have to say Moorfields, the team there, the specialists there, the nurses have been unbelievable, absolutely staggering. So they’ve saved my eye.”
The Metropolitan Police has reportedly made no arrests.
