A MYSTERY hero saved a 19-year-old whose face was smashed with a glass in a Lancaster at the weekend. The man pulled teenager Gavin Darby behind the bar of Keystone's pub on Penny Street and applied emergency first aid to his lacerated face. Gavin later went to Preston Royal Hospital for three days and had plastic surgery. He had been surrounded by a gang chanting "do him, do him," before one man hit him with an unbroken glass which smashed on his face. The callous attacker then laughed and said "I've messed up my new jeans" before the mystery man came to his rescue.

"Gavin wants to thank the man who saved him," said his mum, Heather. "He did say in hospital that he would love to thank him, but nobody knows who he is.

"Gavin and the lads from Carnforth weren't arguing. It was his brother Neil's 18th birthday and a group of them with their girlfriends went into Lancaster because they thought it would be safer.

"The Lancaster lads then said Neil had said something he hadn't. My elder son saw he was in trouble and jumped in. He said they didn't want any trouble and they went away. Then about 20 of them returned... Gavin ended up with a severed artery and a damaged muscle in his face.

"One of the girls tried to help and they were extremely abusive."

Pub manager Andy Shillito helped the mystery man apply the first aid and said trouble was very rare at Keystones.

"This is the first time any sort of trouble has happened in this pub," he said. "A customer who is not known here grabbed hold of the lad after it happened and pulled him behind the bar. He must have been a first aider but he just went as soon as it finished. He got some cloth and applied first aid. I was just involved by helping him behind the bar."

Police are trying to trace a white male, about 5ft 7ins with short, black hair and pushed forward fringe. And anyone who was a witness to the attack should contact the police.

"This is obviously a very, very serious assault," said DC Mark Turner of Lancaster police. "We very much want to catch the culprit."

Anyone with any information should call Lancaster police on 01524 63333.

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