Former Kiwis international and two-time National Rugby League premiership winner Paul Whatuira has revealed he was on the verge of suicide when he attacked two innocent men.
The October attack left the men with facial injuries - including a broken nose for one - and Whatuira in a British psychiatric hospital.
He was not charged over the assaults as he was deemed mentally ill, and has since written to his victims expressing remorse, the Sunday News reported.
The attacks were part of a breakdown Whatuira suffered as he counted down to the birth of his first child; the impending birth brought back memories of abuse he suffered as a six-year-old, he said.
"I hit rock bottom. Things that were in the past, when I was a kid, came back.
"It was something that I swept under the mat and it came back to bite me with a vengeance - it nearly finished me off. Once I was about to have my own kid - what was the happiest thing of my life - it brought back my childhood memories and brought up the past that I had never really told anyone about. "
It all crept up on me and drove me to unfortunately what happened last year."
Whatuira said he was on the brink of suicide before the assaults.
"[Then] for some reason I got up and started running. Unfortunately I did attack those two people," he told the newspaper.
"I am happy that I did get arrested - I look back on it now and I was looking for help, I just didn't know how to deal with it.
"I can say from the bottom of my heart, what happened saved my life." Whatuira and his fiancee, Venessa Almond, will marry in October. Their daughter, Gabrielle Kaea Whatuira, was born on Friday.
Whatuira, originally from Wainuiomata, played for the Auckland Warriors, Melbourne Storm, Penrith Panthers and Wests Tigers in the Australian NRL.
He won premierships with Penrith in 2003 and the West Tigers two seasons later. He was also a member of the Kiwis triumphant Tri-Nations winning squad in 2005.
Whatuira joined Huddersfield in 2008 and has been a success since moving north, claiming a host of club awards as top try scorer, most metres gained and coaches player of the year. He played the last of his tests in 2007.