Andreas Christopheros said police told him very early after the acid attack on his home in Truro, Cornwall, that it was not mistaken identity. More than a decade later, he has described how that response left him feeling like a criminal. David Phillips later admitted the attack and was sentenced in 2015.
This Morning disclosure
Christopheros made the disclosure on ITV's This Morning, where he discussed the December 2014 assault and the years that followed. He said: "The police stated very early on it wasn't a mistaken identity. It was too targeted not to be." He also said: "At times I felt like I was a criminal."
The interview returned the focus to the first hours after the attack at his home in Truro. Christopheros said the acid was thrown after he answered the door to a man he did not know. He was then taken for emergency treatment and transferred to a specialist burns unit.
David Phillips in Truro Crown court
David Phillips travelled almost 300 miles seeking revenge against someone he believed had wronged him, but he arrived at the wrong address. He threw concentrated sulphuric acid over Mr Christopheros. Truro Crown court heard that Phillips wrongly believed Mr Christopheros had sexually assaulted someone close to him.
Phillip Lee said the victim was a married father of one and suffered excruciating, inexplicable pain following the attack on 9 December. In 2015, David Phillips was sentenced for assault causing grievous bodily harm with intent. The sentence followed the court's finding that the attack had been carried out on the wrong person.
Recovery after the Truro attack
The injuries led to a long recovery involving numerous operations and years spent rebuilding confidence. Christopheros said the attack did not end when the acid was thrown; it continued through treatment, surgery and the emotional effect of being told so early that police did not see it as a case of mistaken identity.
For Christopheros, the practical aftermath was not only medical. It was also the burden of trying to make sense of an attack that police initially treated as deliberate, even though Phillips had gone to the wrong address. That contrast remains the sharpest unresolved part of the story: how quickly investigators accepted the mistake that Phillips had made.
