A taxi driver is lucky to be alive after robbers stabbed him in the neck, missing a vital artery by just a centimetre.

Father-of-two George Attaalla was shaking and close to tears as he told how a night shift ended with him covered in blood.

Mr Attaalla picked up two men at about 11.15pm on Saturday at the junction of Viaduct Road and Ditchling Road.

One sat in the front passenger seat and the other in the rear seats as they asked to be taken to Hollingdean.

Mr Attaalla said: "They asked to stop in Lynchet Close and then the man behind me suddenly put a knife to my neck.

"The other man shouted at me: 'Give me your money'."

Mr Attaalla explained he had little cash because he had just started his shift but the man punched him in the face and continued to scream at him for cash.

The cabbie handed over all he had, about £50 in coins and notes, and as the robbers got out, the man with the knife lunged at him, stabbing him in the neck.

The youths fled as Mr Attaalla staggered into Brentwood Road, blood pouring from his wound. He knocked on doors, calling for help, but no one answered.

The thieves had cut through his radio microphone cable but then he remembered his mobile, still inside his green Vauxhall Cavalier. He called the police and then his family.

Officers arrived and helped tend to his wound before an ambulance took him to the Royal Sussex County Hospital.

Recovering at his home in Hove today, Mr Attaalla said: "Doctors called in a specialist to look at my wound.

"He said the knife came within a centimetre of a main artery to my head. I was very lucky."

Mr Attaalla needed six external and four internal stitches and has been advised to take a month off work.

He said: "I'm not sure I will ever go back to taxi work again."

Police are appealing for witnesses to contact Brighton police CID on 0845 60 70 999.