A police car window was smashed as officers interviewed the victim of a syringe stabbing in Oxford.

Landscape gardener Terrentrus Andersohn, 56, was telling police officers about the attack when the car window was broken outside his home in Trefoil Place, Greater Leys, yesterday.

Mr Andersohn, who fears he may have contracted a deadly disease from the needle, was giving a statement when a neighbour knocked on his door to tell the officers about the incident. They went out to investigate and were met with a tirade of verbal abuse. It is thought the window was smashed by a teenage boy.

Mr Andersohn said: "Everything was chaos. There was a big rumpus outside my house. One of the hoodlums rode by on a bike and started laughing and shouting abuse at the officer.

"There was lots of bad language and the youth just had no respect. I'm worried there could be a backlash of abuse towards me."

Mr Andersohn was working at a garden in Staverton Road, Summertown, when he was stabbed from behind with a syringe at 1pm on Tuesday, June 21.

He said: "I was cutting the front hedge, had my back to the road and before I knew it, this young lad barged into me."

Mr Andersohn said he looked down and saw the needle, then looked up and saw his attacker running away.

He said: "I don't know if there was anything in the needle, but I will have to keep having injections every month for about six months."

Mr Andersohn, who came back to the UK from Kenya 11 years ago, when he contracted cerebral malaria, said: "This assault means I have to have injections to prevent HIV and other diseases. I didn't report it until Thursday, as I have had this week off work to sort myself out."

A spokesman for the John Radcliffe Hospital could not comment on Mr Andersohn's specific case. She said a patient who had been stabbed with a syringe would be tested for blood-borne infections, including hepatitis C and HIV. Treatment could include a course of antibiotics.

The attacker is believed to be a teenager. He is about 5ft 4in tall and was wearing a blue hooded top and blue jogging bottoms.

Police spokesman Victoria Bartlett said: "We're taking this assault very seriously and have gone through our usual procedures, advising Mr Andersohn to go to hospital. House-to-house inquiries are taking place in Summertown. We're also investigating the smashed car window."

Anyone with information should call Oxford police on 08458 505505.