A disabled athlete born without arms stabbed his father with the blade from a pair of scissors that he had clenched between his toes. Rory O’Connor, 23, left his dad Kevin needing major surgery after the attack during a row over the weapon. O’Connor – who played football and swam in international competitions for Wales – said he started carrying the blade for his own protection after being threatened on a country walk.
The court heard he was able to carry out a ‘range of activities with his feet, such as washing himself’ but his parents were ‘concerned and frustrated’ about him carrying the weapon. Matthew Roberts, prosecuting, said that during a confrontation over the blade, O’Connor’s father picked up a metre-long tube from a vacuum clear and prodded his son in the chest. O’Connor, of Cardiff, Wales, then ‘struck out’ with his foot, slashing his father in the abdomen and leaving him needing ‘serious medical intervention, including surgery, to treat the perforation wound’.
