A MUSICIAN left for dead in a hit-and-run crash a year ago is returning to the stage for the first time.

John ‘Baby John’ Horgan, 47, of Newlands Avenue, Didcot, faced a 12-month medical battle after being knocked off his motorcycle at Chain Hill, near Wantage, 12 months ago.

Opportunist thieves stole his customised £16,000 Suzuki Bandit 600 motorcycle while he lay unconscious on the road with three broken ribs, a punctured lung, internal bleeding, a fractured collar bone and leg injuries.

No one has been arrested over the incident.

Over the last year, Mr Horgan has suffered a series of medical relapses, including blood clots on his lung, while his business, the Baby John music shop in Cockcroft Road, Didcot, was forced to close as a result.

Still undergoing intensive physiotherapy and rehabilitation, doctors have told him it could take another year before he is fit again.

But, on Friday, he will perform a comeback gig at Didcot’s Red Hot Blues Club with the blues rock Baby John Band in the hall above Didcot Labour Club in Station Road.

He said: “I have not done anything seriously with my guitar for a year, but like anything, you do not forget.

“I can play now for about an hour and three quarters, but then I have to sleep for three or four hours because it wipes me out.

“I am going to give it a go on Friday, because I have needed something positive to work towards.”

He said: “It will be almost exactly a year since the accident, and with all the help the blues club, my customers and friends have given me, I really want to do this.

“It has been a tough year. It seems I take two steps forwards and then six backwards. I’m just grateful to be able to do what I am doing — it could have been so much worse.

Gig organiser Annie Birchall said: “He is a great musician and has been really supportive of other people’s music. It has not been the same without him. We want as many people as possible to come and cheer him on.”

Tickets for the comeback gig which starts at 9pm are available on the door.