A MAN has been given a suspended prison sentence for injuring the thug who bit off part of his ear during late night violence.

Craig Anthony Smythe, 36, reacted to the pain of Christopher Bowes’s bite by recklessly throwing the glass he was holding in a crowded casino, York Crown Court heard.

Lydia Pearce, prosecuting, said the glass broke and cut two people: Bowes and a woman who was not involved in the incident.

Smythe, of Glacier Lane, Scarborough, pleaded guilty to affray and wounding the woman.

Judge Simon Hickey exceptionally allowed him to wear a cap on his head covering his ear during the hearing because the bite has left him permanently disfigured and sensitive about his appearance. Usually defendants have to remove all headgear in the dock.

Bowes, 52, of Mount View Close, Scarborough, was jailed for five years last month. He had denied a charge of wounding Smythe with intent to cause him grievous bodily harm but was convicted by a jury at a trial in which Smythe gave evidence against him.

When Bowes was sentenced, Detective Constable Steve Monty said of his violence: “It was more like a scene from a Quentin Tarantino movie than what you would expect in a licenced premise in Scarborough.”

Judge Hickey, who dealt with both men, told Smythe CCTV of the incident “shows horribly and graphically Bowes lunging towards you and attaching his mouth to your ear.

“Your immediate reaction was to pull away, not surprisingly in great pain and distress, and recklessly throw a glass a short distance. You didn’t intend for a moment to hit (the woman) but unfortunately the glass did cut her arm.

“You were pushed over the edge in this case by a man biting your ear off.”

He gave Smythe a 12-month prison sentence suspended for 18 months and ordered him to pay £400 compensation to the woman. He did not order him to pay any compensation to Bowers.

In a personal statement, the woman said: “I was not involved in the argument (between the two men) but was still injured. This shows you can be injured by being in the wrong place.”

She said she now has a permanent scar on her arm, is now nervous of being around people and that nothing like it had happened to her before.

Defence barrister Nick Peacock did not give any mitigation after the judge indicated that it was an exceptional case that had left Smythe “badly injured” and his reaction to the bite had been “instantaneous” and very different to someone deliberately throwing a glass.

Ms Pearse said both Bowes and Smythe had been drinking alcohol when the incident happened at 4am at the Opera House Casino on December 18, 2021. Something had happened between the two men and Bowes had bit Smythe.