Brave holidaymaker in machete attack drama

A holidaymaker has today told how he fought off a machete-wielding attacker after violence erupted in a Tenerife bar.

A woman was left with injuries to her ear, while her husband's face was cut and another woman's finger was injured as the drama unfolded at a bar in the Malibu Park resort in San Eugenio Alto, Adeje.

Father-of-two Paul Matthews leapt into action without a "second thought".

Despite the 62-year-old attacker having a machete in one hand and a knife in the other, Mr Matthews, aged 43, grabbed his wrists and wrestled him to the ground.

The father-of-two, a former car salesman, said the man had been drinking in the Next Door Bar and started rowing with other revellers. He is thought to have left the bar to fetch the weapons before returning to launch his attack.

Mr Matthews, of Kingswinford, says he slammed the man's arms on the floor until he dropped the weapons and then dragged him outside. Mr Matthews was not harmed but the attacker escaped from the scene and was later arrested.

Mr Matthews said: "I went out for a cigarette and when I came back inside I heard screaming.

"The first thing I see is a woman looking like her finger has been chopped off and another woman with part of her ear ripped off, while a man's face had been hit with a machete. It was absolute bedlam," said Mr Matthews, who regularly visits Tenerife at a neighbouring resort.

"I didn't give it a second thought but I'm sure that if I hadn't stopped him he would have gone on the rampage until someone was dead." But he insists he was just following his instinct when it happened last Monday.

Mr Matthews, returned to his home in the Black Country on Friday after being interviewed by police about the attack.

A Spanish National Police spokesman said a 62-year-old man has been arrested over the incident.