A student who was stabbed in an unprovoked attack has thanked those who rushed to his aid.

Alex Betts was watching a charity football match on the sports field at Sittingbourne Community College when he was struck above the waist with what is thought to have been a pair of blunt scissors.

He didn't realise he had been stabbed until he saw blood and a hole in his shirt prompting him to lift up his top.

The 17-year-old, who is studying BTEC sport studies and public services at the college, described the moment he was assaulted.

Alex, pictured left, said: "He started punching me [from behind], it took me by surprise. I was on the floor, he was punching me in the mouth and the nose."

One of the teachers applied pressure to Alex's stomach wound while witnesses grabbed hold of the suspect, but he managed to break free.

Police and ambulance crews arrived at the school, in Swanstree Avenue, Sittingbourne, within minutes of the incident at around 4.20pm on Friday, March 23.

Officers arrested a teenager close to the school at around 4.45pm.

Alex was taken to Medway Maritime Hospital, in Gillingham, but was allowed home later that night.

Speaking about the attack, he said: "He pulled my girlfriend up by the hair and threw her up against the fence then [he] came back and punched me but he had actually stabbed me. I was in shock."

Police at Sittingbourne Community College after the stabbing

Alex returned to lessons last Tuesday and attended the rescheduled charity event at the school on Friday where he was presented with an Arsenal football top.

"I'm feeling good. I have thanked all the teachers," he said. "I think highly of the lot of them and I'm grateful to them."

His parents Ellie and Daren Betts were at home in Kemsley when they got the call from the college saying Alex had been stabbed.

Ellie, a 34-year-old mum of seven, said: "They said they would ring us back if he'd got to go to hospital so we were waiting around like idiots. They didn't say to do anything just wait for the phone call.

"I started throwing up and going mad. All sorts of things start running through your head, you don't know where he's been stabbed.

"Then half an hour later we got a call from the school saying he was going to hospital so I got my aunt to take me up there.

"My husband stayed at home with the children. When I saw him he just looked at me."

A 17-year-old Queenborough boy, who has no connection with the school, has been released on bail until April 13.