An autistic teenage boy suffering from anxiety for two years was brutally stabbed while coughing up the courage to step out of the house on the evening of Sept. 17 last year. Billy Baxter, a 16-year-old from Blackburn, Lancashire survived the attack but sustained a massive 12-inch scar that runs down the length of his chest.
In an update from the Mirror, Baxter was said to have been suffering from social anxiety on top of his autism. He had been cooped up inside the house for two years and had only decided to venture out the second time when he was attacked while walking near his home. He suffered a cut in the heart and lungs and was required to undergo life-saving surgery within 24-hours upon his admittance. Doctors had to open him up and pull the boy’s rib cage back to perform the operation on his heart and repair the tube that runs from his heart for the blood supply. Another stab wound had also slashed his liver.
Medical records show the teen boy had ADHD and autism and has spent over two years lodged in his girlfriend’s home due to his lifelong developmental disability. Just before the attack, his girlfriend broke up with him and Baxter moved back to his mother’s home. Recent developments in the investigation revealed the circumstances behind the incident traced back to a row over a girl with his alleged attacker.
He was just trying to get over his nerves and step out of the house for the second time to meet up with a new girl he was interested in when he was ambushed shortly after leaving the house around 6:45 pm.
"He'd been in a relationship, and he'd found out she was cheating on him, so he came back home after isolating with her for two and a half years,” Baxter’s mother, Jessie Brian said.
Court documents state that Baxter’s attacker was a 17-year-old whose identity cannot be disclosed for legal reasons. He was sentenced last week to a mere 28 months in jail for the crime as the Crown Prosecution Service downgraded his original charge of attempted murder to wounding with intent.
Baxter’s mother said her son was left traumatized by the attack and their family plans to move out of the area. "I've been around this area for 35 years - it's the only area that I've known - and now we have to leave because the attacker knows my address and so does his family," she added.
The teen’s mom was not happy about the sentence saying it was a “slap on the wrist” on her son’s attacker, while Baxter nearly lost his life and now has to turn his back on his ambitions and live in fear.
