Lecturer beaten to a pulp by four burglars meets man who attacked him - and shakes his hand

A dad of four who was beaten to a pulp by burglars who raided his his home has met on of his attackers. Paul Kohler, 55, suffered a fractured eye socket, a fracture to his left jawbone, a broken nose and bruising that left him "utterly unrecognisable" during the 2014 attack at his home in Wimbledon , south London.

But now to try and put the attack behind him and find out why he was targeted he has met one of the men who battered him.

Attackers clockwise from top left: Pawel Honc, Mariusz Tomaszewski, Dawid Tychon, Oskar Pawlowicz

The first time Paul saw his attacker, he looked up with pleading eyes while Mariusz Tomaszewski punched him and threatened to beat him with a wooden cabinet door.

Then last week – 16 months later – Paul and his family met Tomaszewski, one of the four Polish burglars who brutally beat him during a drink and drug fuelled burglary , again, but this time in HM Prison Whitemoor, in Cambridgeshire.

And in an extraordinary act of compassion, the family shook his hand and offered him forgiveness – and learned the savage attack had been a case of mistaken identity.

Paul, a 56-year-old law lecturer, suffered horrific injuries in the ferocious attack at his upmarket Wimbledon home in south west London and was left looking “utterly unrecognisable.”

Yet, after meeting Tomaszewski and receiving a sincere apology, he feels no anger, hate or bitterness.