University lecturer who was beaten by four burglars FORGIVES one of his attackers in prison meeting - as shocking new image reveals full horror of his injuries

The shocking new image of the victim of a brutal assault has been released, just days after he visited one of his attackers in prison and forgave him. Paul Kohler, 56, a university lecturer, was brutalized by a drink and drug-fuelled gang of four Polish men who burst into his home in Wimbledon, west London, in the summer of 2014. The 20-minute beating left him with a fractured eye socket, a fracture to his left jawbone, a broken nose and bruising.

A newly-published image from the immediate aftermath of the attack shows the huge swelling around Mr Kohler's eye, which can barely open and glows a livid shade of purple.

Blood pours from his nose and lips as the dazed law academic, who teaches at London's School of African and Oriental Studies (SOAS), struggles to focus on the camera.

Mariusz Tomaszewski, a 33-year-old cage fighter, spoke to Mr Kohler for an hour and a half from his cell in a HMP Whitemoor, Cambridgeshire, and apologised for the attack.

At the end of the meeting, the two shook hands. 

He said: 'At the end of the meeting I took the decision to shake his hand, so did Sam and Eloise.

'It was not pre-planned it just felt like the right thing to do. The act of forgiving someone is incredibly powerful.