When people mocked Danny Ross, 44, for being fat, they did not realise his flab would save his life.

Ross, from Devon, was stabbed 38 times by a David Johnson, who accused him of stealing money from a family member. The former computer analyst was watching television at home, when the incident happened. He was, according to the Sun, strangled with a belt and attacked with a kitchen knife.

"He started to get violent. He got out a belt and put it round my throat. In seconds I was unconscious. After I saw the photos the police took I couldn't believe it. If I had been thinner I would have been dead. The medical staff tried to be tactful in the way they described it, but I am heavier than I like to be and they said it was that extra weight that saved my life. It knocked me back and I would wake up in the middle of the night not feeling safe," Ross told The Sun, after having 70 stitches.

According to the Daily Mail, when the paramedics came, they found Ross sitting on a sofa in a blood-soaked shirt, surrounded by "pools of blood". The jury was told the victim was allegedly a heroin addict and the accused had gone to his house to tell him he owed his father two bags of heroin. Apparently, when Johnson reached the residence, Ross was sitting on the sofa crying and pleading for death. At that point, the prosecutor explained, Johnson took off his belt, saying: "You want to die, do you?" and attempted to strangle him before stabbing.

"I have formed my own opinion from the facts and obviously there's some background with issues of drink and probably heroin. And he continues to deny responsibility despite the evidence," Judge Graham Cottle said, before announcing for sentencing on 18 May.