Strictly Come Dancing professional dancer and judge Anton Du Beke has revealed he was stabbed by his father as a child.

The 57-year-old grew up as Tony Beke, the son of a Spanish mother and Hungarian father, on a council housing estate in Sevenoaks.

Speaking to Kate Garraway on ITV’s Life Stories programme, Du Beke said his father stabbed him in the leg and stomach during a Boxing Day altercation at the family home.

He revealed he had to spend three days in hospital as a result of the attack.

Du Beke, who went to the Wildernesse School (now the Knowle Academy) said his father, Antal Beke, had been an alcoholic subject to fierce rages.

He said: "I got stabbed in the leg and in the stomach because of a fight on Boxing Day, and it was an idiotic situation.

"I remember walking out of the house to walk up to the hospital holding my leg and a police car drove past and I waved them down and I said 'he's in there with a knife'.”

Du Beke said he had been embarrassed by the incident, which he tried to conceal at the time by telling people he had pulled a hamstring.

He said now was the first time he had ever talked about it.

He said at the time, he had already developed an interest in dancing, which he picked up after collecting his sister from a local dance studio, Holton School of Dancing, which has since closed.

He said while his mother encouraged his new hobby, his relationship with his father became ever more difficult.

Du Beke said: "The alcoholism and the violence... towards me.

I like to look forward, not back

"You've got an alcoholic father and a situation where if you're in the house, drinking, then you end up with the fights and stuff. It just came to a head one evening.”

Antal Beke was arrested at the time, but was cleared in court of wounding his son.

However, the incident created a permanent rift, and when his father died in 2001, Anton Du Beke did not attend the funeral.

Du Beke told the TV presenter he had never mentioned the incident before because “I'm a forward looker... I don't like to look back, I like to look forward".

He immediately said he regretted mentioning it.

The aspiring dancer soon changed his name from Tony Beke to Anton Du Beke. He said: "I wanted a new start and a new beginning and I wanted to leave what went before behind, and move on with the rest of my life, I just wanted to be me."

Du Beke’s celebrity dance partners have included Ann Widdecombe, for 23 years the MP of Maidstone, as well soap star Emma Barton and the former home secretary, Jacqui Smith.

He has appeared at many venues across Kent in touring dance shows, including one last year at the Assembly Halls in Tunbridge Wells in partnership with Giovanni Pernice.