JUST four weeks ago Ashley Glossop struggled to leave his home on his own after a violent assault left him virtually blind.

The 27-year-old was walking home from a night out with friends in April last year when he was set upon and badly beaten by a gang of thugs.

For almost 12 months he has battled to get his life back on track.

Now Mr Glossop is about to launch his own business selling children's toys and personalised teddies and is determined his disability will not hold him back.

He said: "I did get very depressed after the attack, but since I've been planning the business, I've had so much more confidence and I feel ready to tackle anything."

He went through months of gruelling treatment after the attack. Three attempts at laser surgery failed to reduce the mounting pressure in his eye and last September he had a tube inserted into his eye to relieve it.

It was a success, but Mr Glossop - who was already blind in one eye before the attack - was left with such poor vision in the other eye that he has been registered blind.

He was unable to continue training to become a gas engineer but launched his teddy bear business a month ago - and is due to open on Saturday.

Mr Glossop, of Brookfield Street, Tonge Moor, has been counselled through his ordeal by Henshaws Society for the Blind. As well as toys and teddies, he will be selling CDs, CD-roms, alarm clocks, cards and many other products, along with his business partner and wife, Tracy.

Their business, Rainbows Ltd, will open for trading on Saturday in a unit in Shipgates, in Crompton Place.

Mrs Glossop, aged 26, said: "I'm so proud of how he has turned it around and has turned what's happened to him on its head.

"A month ago, he could barely leave the house. Just look at what he's achieved now."

The toys are supplied by an American company called Kids Juke Box, which also has a branch office in England.

The attack on Mr Glossop came just a year after his daughter, Kira, who has cerebral palsy and was unable to walk unaided, stunned medics by walking down their aisle at his wedding in 2005, after injections to relax muscles.

There was not enough evidence to bring charges against Mr Glossop's attackers.