Brian Harvey leaves hospital

Harvey had plastic surgery on the head injury

Pop singer Brian Harvey has left hospital saying an attack outside a nightclub that left him requiring head surgery was unprovoked.

The former East 17 star was set upon by a gang of four or five men at about 0130 GMT on Tuesday.

I would like to say a big thank you to everyone who has sent messages to me

Brian Harvey

Police originally thought he had been attacked with an axe or machete, but later said the weapon was likely to have been smaller.

Police are now trying to track down the assailants. Nightclub staff were alerted after the attack, but the men had fled before bouncers reached the scene.

Harvey had plastic surgery on the injury and was due to return to the hospital for further treatment later on Wednesday.

He told waiting reporters at Nottingham City Hospital on Wednesday that he did not feel "too bad considering what has happened".

He said he did not know what had happened at the time of the attack outside Nottingham's The Works nightclub.

The attack happened outside The Works club in Nottingham

"I had just come out of the club with a mate who had come to do the gig with me," he said.

"I was just standing there chatting to some people and he had gone back into the club to go to the toilet.

"The next thing I was attacked - it was totally unprovoked and I don't know who did it."

He was due to give a statement to detectives, who also dusted his silver Mercedes sports car for fingerprints and took photographs of it.

"I would like to say a big thank you to everyone who has sent messages to me. I am looking forward to getting home," he added.

Harvey's girlfriend Emma B said surgeons had done a "fantastic job"

His girlfriend, model Emma B, said he often got into trouble at his shows - but "usually it's just a bit of a scuffle or something".

"People seem to think he's flash and always trying to show off but he's just not like that, he's really down to earth and a lovely bloke," she said.

She said she thought the attackers were just jealous and "off their faces", and also praised the plastic surgeons who treated Harvey.

"They have done a fantastic job, it looked so bad at first but I don't think it will even show once it's healed."

Wyclef Jean recently had a hit duet with Harvey

Harvey has been regularly hitting the headlines since becoming part of the hugely successful boy band East 17, who had a string of hits in the early 1990s.

But he was sacked from the band in 1997 after he claimed in an interview that he took 12 ecstasy tablets on one night and that drugs made "better people".

A year later, Harvey was also convicted of kicking a press photographer and was ordered to pay more than £3,000 in fines and court costs.

He recently he made the top 20 with a song written by rap producer Wyclef Jean called Loving You.