by Caroline Innes, Liverpool Daily Post

A LIVERPOOL man was blinded in one eye by a police water cannon as he staged a protest at the G8 summit in Germany.
The 33-year-old from Aigburth spoke exclusively to the Daily Post of the horror and pain of being directly hit in the face with the powerful jets by officers he claimed were using the crowd control devices as weapons.
The protester, a member of Liverpool’s Social Forum, is suffering from shock and witnesses to the incident, which occurred at the protest in the Baltic Sea resort of Heiligendamm on Thursday, said they saw his eye come out of its socket.
Speaking last night from the Eye Unit at the Royal Liverpool Hospital, the victim, who wishes only to be called Matt, said a CAT scan had revealed he had sustained internal bleeding, extensive damage to his Iris and possible damage to his retina.
Doctors have now told the keen reader, cyclist and amateur photographer, that he will face future operations, cataracts, and glaucoma.
They told him that because of the internal bleeding it would be between six to eight weeks before they could assess the damage to his retina but warned that permanent harm had been caused and that he will never fully regain the vision in that eye.
Matt said: “I went to Germany to take part in a peaceful protest and to be honest at the start of the day there was a very jolly, almost carnival, atmosphere.
“There were three lines of police and all of a sudden things got more aggressive.
“There were a few baton charges so all the protesters just linked arms and stood firm. It was all still very peaceful.
“I have never seen water cannons before and all of a sudden there were eight or nine of them. The police made an announcement in German but none of us understood it and then we were fired at.