Selby's "bionic man" who spent nine months in hospital after a horrific car crash spoke today of his never-ending nightmare.

David Linley is now back home learning to walk again, his body held together with metal plates and screws.

The father-of-three from South Milford was speaking for the first time since the head-on crash which turned his life upside down.

Today he renewed his appeal for the driver of a Metro car, who stopped at the crash scene before leaving when the police arrived, to come forward.

Mr Linley, 49, spent 25 hours on the operating table as surgeons painstakingly rebuilt his shattered face, and carried out a delicate operation on his spine to stabilise his broken neck.

His appalling injuries included:

* A "hangman's" fracture at the top of his neck

* A broken jaw and shattered right knee

* A dislocated left hip and smashed hip socket

* A fractured thigh, collarbone, wrist and foot

Mr Linley spent three weeks in intensive care as doctors fought to save his life, and pinned together his broken body with intricate metal work.

He later spent five months in a neurological rehabilitation unit where, unable to move, he had to be shifted around on sheets.

Mr Linley, a sales manager with Platts Harris Agricultural Group at Selby Common, still has memory and concentration problems.

He said: "I can remember very little about the last nine months. I've still got pain in my neck all the time, and I'm managing to walk a little with a stick.

"The whole thing is a never-ending nightmare."

His wife, Eva, said it was only his sheer will to live that pulled him through.

It was that same willpower that saw him taken to South Milford Church in an ambulance and down the aisle in a wheelchair to give his daughter away at her wedding.

Mr Linley was on his way home from work at 6.15pm on January 5 when his Ford Sierra was in a head-on collision with a Landrover Freelander on the B1222 Cawood to Sherburn-in-Elmet Road.

Mrs Linley said: "If we can trace the Metro driver and find out what happened, at least it will give us peace of mind."

Anyone with information should contact the family on 01977 684797.

Updated: 08:32 Wednesday, January 10, 2001