“The distance between living and dying could be inches.”

WHILE the victim of an alleged coward punch remains in hospital in a critical condition, the father of a teenager killed in another horrific bashing has spoken out about the vicious assaults.

WHILE the victim of an alleged coward punch remains in hospital in a critical condition, the father of a teenager killed in another horrific bashing has spoken out about the vicious assaults.

Mermaid Waters man Liam McNeilly, 34, was fighting for his life in the Gold Coast University Hospital intensive care last night after he was allegedly assaulted at Surfers Paradise on Thursday morning.

Paul Stanley has been campaigning for more than a decade to educate young people about the dangers of violence and how one punch can cause so much agony.

He knows better than most the pain behind the death of a loved one at the hands of a coward attack. In 2006, Paul’s son Matthew died after being punched outside an 18th birthday party in Alexandra Hills.

SOUTHPORT MAN CRITICAL AFTER PUNCH TO HEAD

Paul Stanley, father of Matthew Stanley. Pic Darren England.

His attacker, who was just 16 at the time, later pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

“I spend all day every day going around and talking to young people about it, trying to get the message through to them that these things do happen and they happen to real people,” he said yesterday.

“You can’t take it back. Once you’ve thrown that punch, it’s happened … victims hit their head on the concrete and they can die.

“You (the thrower of the punch) may not mean it to happen, but it’s too late.

“With Matthew, if he had been about three or four inches to his right he would have landed on the grass. He wouldn’t have hit his head on the concrete, and hitting his head on the concrete is what killed him.

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“The distance between living and dying could be inches.” He said it was hard to fathom whether young people understood the dangers of punching.

“People die, it’s terrible, or conversely, which would probably be even worse, they could end up being a vegetable. It’s horrific,’’ he said.

“You cannot quantify going in and talking to kids. If you talk to 250 kids, you can’t know if 16 of those kids will never ever throw a punch again in anger. It just doesn’t work that way. But sometimes you’ve just got to do something because you know it’s the right thing to do.”