An army officer’s ear was “completed severed” during a drunken attack in a Harrogate pub.

Corporal David Webb was attacked by 31-year-old roofer Carter Kennedy, aka Smith, at The Winter Gardens, the Wetherspoon’s pub in Parliament Street, after Kennedy questioned his military credentials, York Crown Court heard.

During a scuffle on the floor, Kennedy punched Cpl Webb repeatedly which caused bruising to his forehead and eye socket, but the military man didn’t realise he had a gaping ear wound until someone pointed it out and he saw blood on his hand.

Prosecutor Daisy Wrigley said the ear was “completely severed through the middle”, yet it was still unclear whether it had been caused by a bite and there was no evidence a weapon had been used.

She said that Cpl Webb was out with friends at the Wetherspoon’s pub on April 4 last year and was having a cigarette in the smoking area when Kennedy, who was drunk, approached them.

Kennedy had overheard Cpl Webb - who before the attack was a military Phase 1 training instructor - telling two women he was in the army and questioned his military credentials.

Ms Wrigley said:

Kennedy didn’t believe him and said he had friends and family members who had fought and died in the army.

An hour later, at about 11pm, Cpl Webb was back inside the pub when Kennedy approached him again and put his arms around him, before accusing him again of “lying about being in the army”.

Ms Wrigley said:

As the two men wrestled and “rolled around” on the floor, Kennedy punched him two or three times in the face. They were eventually pulled apart and Cpl Webb was told he had injured his ear.

The “horrific” injury was described as a “2cm through-and-through wound entering one side of the left ear and exiting through the other side”.

He was taken to Harrogate District Hospital but due to the severity of his injury was transferred to York District Hospital for specialist facial surgery in which he had 56 stitches inserted into his ear to close the wound and essentially stitch the organ back together.

Kennedy, from Wallsend, north Tyneside, was arrested and charged with wounding or inflicting grievous bodily harm without intent but denied the offence, claiming self-defence. He was found guilty in his absence at Harrogate Magistrates’ Court and appeared for sentence yesterday (Wednesday, May 29) at the Crown Court.

Cpl Webb, wearing full military regalia brimming with medals, read out his victim testimony in court, describing the “emotional trauma” and “drastic” effect that the horrific wound had had on his social, family and work life.

This had stymied his “illustrious” military career, denying him promotion to sergeant and two specific roles he had previously held with aplomb.

The married father-of-four, who is from the Harrogate area and had recently been deployed in Germany, said that since the attack he had gone from an “outgoing and confident person” to one who now shunned social situations wherever possible.

Before the attack, his role was as a trainer of junior soldiers at a base in Harrogate but he now “struggled to concentrate in large crowds” and found it hard to function, resulting in him being removed from his training position and being given a lesser role in the army which had cost him financially.

Cpl Webb said: 

His hearing had also been affected and he now suffered with tinnitus which meant he couldn’t engage in military operations as a weapons specialist. He may now have to use a hearing aid.

Ms Wrigley said the injury to Cpl Webb’s ear was “permanent and irreversible”.

Defence barrister Jemima Stephenson said that Kennedy, who had 10 previous offences on his record, felt a “great deal of shame” for his actions.

She said the father-of-two would lose his job if he were jailed which would have a profound effect on his family and partner, whom he was due to marry in October.

She said there was no evidence that Kennedy had used his teeth to cause the horrific wound. Although it appeared that a “section of (the victim’s) ear has been removed” and reattached, she claimed it “wasn’t severed completely”.

At a preliminary hearing in April, judge Simon Hickey said the “common-sense inference” - given the 56 stitches and the fact there was no smashed glass on the pub floor - was that Kennedy had bitten the victim.

However, the court had now concluded there was “no evidence that (the wound) was caused by a bite”.

Kennedy, of Beckford Close, Battle Hill, was jailed for 18 months.