LYING in a hospital bed in what would be the final moments of his life, Matthew Thomas’s eyes twitched as his sister kissed his forehead and whispered “love you forever”.
Hours earlier the 47-year-old had been struck with what witnesses described as a “Mike Tyson punch” by thug Daniel Pickering, outside a nightclub in Neath, South Wales.
Matthew’s 2022 death was considered a tragic and unpredictable incident by many, but the vicious killer had a history of violence behind him.
And the disturbing truth is that many so-called 'one-punch killers' display a clear pattern of violent behaviour before tragedy strikes, with some even going on to harm again after serving jail time.
On the day that Pickering took a life, the 34-year-old had been released on bail after being charged with assaulting a barman in Hampshire and had gone on a drugs and booze binge.
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South Wales Police Detective Superintendent Mark Lewis said: “He's deliberately got out all day, drank a hell of a lot of alcohol - beer, tequila, wine.
“We know that he's purchased cocaine and consumed it. So it's a binge really and then it culminated in him attacking Matthew outside - so a reckless series of events.”
Pickering is among a series of 'ticking timebomb' attackers featured in ITV’s Code Blue: One Punch Killers, which airs tonight.
The documentary, which found 82 people have died from single-hit attacks in the past five years, explores the damning effect on families and the events leading up to vicious attacks.
Among them is a father-of-three who now battles memory issues that cause him to forget instructions within minutes and the family of a victim, who feel it's them who have been given “a life sentence”.
'Mike Tyson punch'
Code Blue focuses on three attacks in South Wales, which happened over three months in 2022, after discovering one in every seven homicides in the area is caused by one-punch violence.
Among them was Matthew, described as “loud and always happy”, who had been enjoying drinks inside The Arch Nightclub and chatting with a wedding party.
When Pickering approached things turned sour and he “became aggressive” towards Matthew for no reason, according to witnesses.
The future killer was ejected from the nightclub shortly after and stood “gesticulating towards” Matthew for 15 minutes before he came outside to defuse the situation.
Pickering, who had drinking heavily and purchased £600 worth of cocaine that day, then took off his shirt before delivering what was said to be “a boxer’s punch, a full force punch to the face”.
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Matthew was knocked out cold and it’s believed this single hit and his skull hitting the pavement tore an artery in his brain, which led to his death the following day.
Det Supt Lewis recalled a witness comparing it to a “Mike Tyson punch”, adding: “If you're boxing, you've got your guard, if you're prepared, your head forwards, you've got a gum shield in.
“But in a social environment people are not prepared for a punch and so they are really vulnerable.”
The single hit alone could have been enough to kill Matthew, due to him falling and hitting his head on the ground, yet vicious Pickering went back for more.
Det Supt Lewis said: “He punched him once… hit him again and then once he's unconscious and motionless on the floor, a stamp or kick to the head.
“He’s shouting at him, ‘I'm going to finish you off.’ I think that’s sufficient evidence to show intent.”
In a video recorded at the scene, witnesses were heard yelling “Oh my god, he’s dead” and “You’ve f***ing killed him” as Matthew lay in a critical state on the ground.
“Emotionless” Pickering was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life with a minimum of 18 years in prison term for the “mindless, gratuitous and unprovoked violence”.
The wife could ask me to do something and within 5 minutes it’s gone. I could jump in the car, I know where I’m going, next minute, I'm blank
Victim Chris Harris
The death of Matthew - the brother of former Welsh national rugby team players Nathan and Aled Brew - traumatised the family, especially his mum Ethel.
Sister Kate said: “If you don't answer the phone to my mother, she assumes something awful has happened to you.
“By the time you get back to talk to her, she's in a terrible state. She just falls to pieces and that will never, ever stop.”
Sister Rachel added: “The pain this has caused is unbearable. I wake up every day and it's the first thing I think of, and then I realise why he's not with us anymore.
“He'll get out of prison. He'll get to be with his family again. He's taken all of that away from Matthew.”
Mum Ethel explains that one-punch violence "affects so many people" - both the victim and attackers' families - and brands it "so unnecessary".
She said: “You can just punch somebody, they could fall backward and just die, so if people can actually understand that it doesn't not only destroy our family, it's the family of the other person."
'My life is done'
Chris Harris's life was changed forever after a one-punch attack in Merthyr Tydfil, in 2022 - with the dad-of-three now suffering from permanent brain damage.
He was walking home after drinks with friends on a bank holiday weekend when he noticed “a bit of a commotion outside” on the street.
The dad intervened and tried to “de-escalate the situation” because he knew the man who was being beaten up. Only a minute later, he suffered a near-fatal punch to the head.
Chris, who woke up in intensive care with a fractured skull and a bleed to the brain, recalls: “I didn’t have a clue where I was or what happened.
“I was in and out of consciousness. I got woken up by my wife, Lynsey, she explained to me, I've had a massive operation and that's when I burst out crying. I just thought, ‘I'm done. My life's done.’”
Chris was an hour away from death when surgeons operated on him and faced a lengthy rehabilitation - to this day, he’s yet to make a full recover.
In this case, a fist is just as dangerous as a knife…. I'm not satisfied that four years… is long enough for this kind of repeated offence.
Jim Bainbridge
Wife Lynsey says: “When it first happened I lost a husband that night and gained an extra kid, because the first two and a half months he literally couldn’t walk, tidy, he couldn’t drive… run his own business.
“He couldn’t look after the kids, he couldn’t walk up and down the stairs. Everyone just looks at Chris and sees him as they saw him two years ago, but to us, he’s not [the same].”
Chris is suspected of suffering PTSD from the attack and struggles with his memory.
“The wife could ask me to do something and within five minutes it’s gone,” he says.
“I could jump in the car, I know where I’m going, next minute, I'm blank. I don't sleep. You have flashbacks. Just everything has changed.”
His attacker Daniel Gerrard, 40, was a former boxer and it wasn’t his first vicious attack. Nearly a decade earlier he killed Robert Hurdley, from Rotherham, in another one punch assault.
Gerrard was sentenced to six years in prison over the 2013 manslaughter charge and after committing yet another attack, victim Chris believed the thug clearly showed “no remorse at all”.
He added: “Ten years later, he's done it again. The sentence for the last crime… It was not enough, really, for taking a man's life - taking away a father who has three children [and] a wife.
“You've got to think of the impact after, the families, the children, the consequences. There's just no remorse there at all. Nothing at all.”
For the attack on Chris, Gerrard was sentenced to four years imprisonment and in attendance at the sentencing was Jim Bainbridge, a friend of late father-of-three Robert.
I'm the one who's been given the life sentence and I'm the one who's got to suffer for the rest of my life.
Karin Nicholas
Jim described the attacker as “a danger to other members of the public” and was appalled he had been able to “commit an almost identical offence against somebody else”.
“The judge did say because of his boxing training, his fists are weapons and with that I think we should be looking much harder at do we treat these offences where a fist is effectively a weapon," he told the documentary.
“Do we look at it in that kind of context and say, ‘Actually the sentence should be extended?’ If he'd used a knife, he would have got much, much longer.
“In this case, a fist is just as dangerous as a knife…. I'm not satisfied that four years… is long enough for this kind of repeated offence.”
'Clearly looking for trouble'
Also featured in the documentary was Andrew Nicholas, whose body went into cardiac arrest after being punched by Morgan Wainwright, 19, in Monmouth.
The teen was described as having been “clearly looking for trouble” on the night of the killing, by police.
Before running into Andrew, he had been kicked out of a pub for an altercation and later got involved in a second fight with pals on the street.
Wainwright, who was sentenced to four years in youth detention, was high on cocaine, ketamine and alcohol at the time of the unprovoked attack.
Det Supt Nick Wilkie, of Gwent Police, said: “Somebody who's been involved in two fights before was clearly looking for trouble.
“Andrew didn’t show any aggression at all, he had his hands behind his back. It wasn't until there was a push and then it resulted in Andrew being punched once to the head and then once again as he was falling over.”
Five days after the attack, Andrew’s family made the heart-wrenching decision to switch off his life support machine after scans revealed no sign of brain activity.
His mum Karin described losing her son as “the worst thing that a mother could go through” and said the pain “is there all the time”.
She added: “I'm the one who's been given the life sentence and I'm the one who's got to suffer for the rest of my life.”
Andrew’s brother Mark described having lost his “best friend” and added: “My children are struggling with bereavement [too].
“When you have your daughter ending a phone call each tie with ‘Please don’t die’ that rips through you.”
'Devastating injuries'
The exact figures for one punch assaults and homicides are unclear due to neither being recorded by UK police forces.
Dr Matt Morgan, a consultant in intensive care medicine, believes the “number is high” based on his time working in hospital wards
“You can cause really devastating injuries to people even with a relatively light impact with your fist,” he says.
“The ripples affect so many others around. It may be one punch, but it's many lives. I wish it was something unusual and something rare, but sadly it's not.”
He added that if someone hits their head on the pavement it can cause “a huge amount of injuries, from tears in the arteries to bleeding within the brain itself”.
Det Supt Lewis says the “vast majority” of one-punch attacks are “male on male” violence and typically the victim doesn’t know the offender.
He adds: “More often than not occurring on a Thursday, Friday, Saturday night, often where people have been drinking or consuming drugs.”
He concedes that “policing can only do so much” and urges the public to “reflect in the cold light of day what their tipping points are” in a bid to stem the violence.
“Is it is it the fourth or fifth or sixth pint? Is it the second line of Coke? What is causing your behaviour to change?” he says.
“I also think there's an opportunity then with families and friends who may be out with potential offenders to divert them away from a scenario which might develop into a serious assault or even worse.”
Code Blue: One Punch Killers airs at 9pm tonight on ITV1 and can be streamed on ITVX.
