Machete attack on camper van couple

Jock and Kath Fordyce were subjected to the vicious and unprovoked assault after two men broke into their camper van.

The couple, from Skegness, Lincolnshire, had parked off the main Belfast to Dublin road near the border when they were woken from their sleep by their attackers.

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Mrs Fordyce, 56, suffered a fractured skull and broken ribs while Mr Fordyce, 61, suffered a broken arm and slashed wrists during the incident, losing four pints of blood.

The men stole a number of items and drove off across the border in the camper van, leaving Mr and Mrs Fordyce for dead.

The couple, who run a packaging factory, are still recovering from their injuries. Mr Fordyce has scars on his head where he was hit with a machete and a scar under his eye from an axe attack.

Mrs Fordyce is in severe pain from broken ribs and has a deep indentation at the back of her head from a fractured skull.

On Irish radio yesterday, Mrs Fordyce said she was still finding it difficult to sleep at night, a month after the attack.

She said: "I can't see the scar on my head but I can feel the hole where I was bashed with a metal bar.

"I think about it every day. I don't think it will ever leave me because we have to look at the physical scars we've been left with.

"I don't sleep very well at night at all. I suffer nightmares about it."

The couple were on their first visit to Ireland when they parked for a night's sleep close to the Ravensdale Hotel in County Louth.

Four hours later, they heard someone outside claiming to be border police and ordering them to move the van from the lay-by.

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Mrs Fordyce, a mother of four, said: "The first knock was quite gentle but then there was an almighty hammering on the door and I knew instinctively that we were in trouble.

"I was wearing a little satin nightie and I pulled my fleece on over it. In the few seconds we had, I grabbed my mobile phone and flicked my rings around to hide the diamonds.

"Jock told the men to leave us alone, to take the camper van and our money and go away.

"That's when all hell broke loose. Exactly 11 minutes later, it was all over.

"We were on the ground covered in blood, dazed and in pain and we were bleeding like something out of a horror movie while we watched our van being driven off back towards the North."

The couple managed to phone the police on a mobile phone, after two lorry drivers refused to acknowledge their cries for help.

An ambulance arrived 20 minutes later to find Mr Fordyce bleeding from a punctured artery.

Mr Fordyce said: "We learned later that the ambulance driver fell to his knees and almost collapsed when he saw how badly injured we were because there was so much blood.

"Kath said I looked like I'd been skinned alive."

Two men have been charged in connection with the attack.