Woman who bit off boyfriend’s tongue jailed

A WOMAN who bit off her boyfriend’s tongue during a kiss on his birthday was jailed for three years yesterday.

Tracy Davies, 40, severed the first third of Mark Coghill’s tongue in “an animal fashion” after asking him for a “smoochy kiss”, Newcastle Crown Court had heard.

The pair, who met through a lonely hearts column, had been celebrating Coghill’s 45th birthday, and had drunk two bottles of vodka before the incident.

During the three-day trial, Newcastle Crown Court heard how Davies “turned into the likes of Mike Tyson” within seconds of being “lovely”.

A recovering alcoholic, Davies had become upset because she wanted a baby and discovered she wasn’t pregnant.

When Coghill comforted her, she told him she loved him and asked him to kiss her.

But she soon turned into a “massive monster”, Coghill told the court, biting down hard on his tongue after she lured him into putting it in her mouth.

He screamed in pain and tapped her on the head in a bid to make her release him.

Instead she chewed through his tongue, and spat it out on the floor.

Sentencing her, Judge John Evans said Davies had acted in an “animal fashion” and said Coghill’s injury was “truly appalling”.

The judge said he thought the injury Davies had inflicted upon her then- boyfriend was “unique”.

“Thankfully people biting other people’s tongues off is a fairly unusual experience,” the judge said.

“These courts have had plenty of experience of people biting noses off a person, or ears, or parts of noses and parts of ears, but in my experience, biting a tongue off in this fashion is unique.”

The judge said Davies had shown no remorse for her crime, but acknowledged that she was not a danger to society at large.

“I dare say Mr Coghill living as he must do for the rest of his life without two thirds of his tongue will continue to regard you as dangerous,” he told her.

“He has by the loss of his tongue experienced a considerable loss of taste, and he feels the disfigurement very keenly.”

During the trial, Coghill told the court how he tried to fight Davies off, but her teeth remained clamped to his tongue.

“I couldn’t kick her off, or push her away or anything like that. I was just hoping and praying she would stop,” Coghill told the court.

“Then when she did stop, she opened her mouth, and looked at me in such a way that I have never seen anyone do before.

“She opened her mouth, and my tongue was in her mouth. She let out a satisfaction sound, like if you have a cup of tea when you haven’t had one for a few days. An mmmm sound.”

He said he thought his tongue was “a little trophy” to Davies.

After passing out in pain, Coghill was later woken by Davies sinking her teeth into his elbow.

She then called an ambulance to the flat, who in turn alerted the police.

Upon arrival they were greeted by Davies holding the remains of Coghill’s tongue in a plastic bag.

She told them: “We had a domestic. I’ve bitten his tongue off. Here it is,” Newcastle Crown Court was told.

Davies even expressed surprise when she was arrested, and asked police if they were “joking”.

The piece of tongue was recovered but the risk of infection was too great to risk re-attaching it, doctors at Newcastle General Hospital said.

Davies’s barrister, Carl Gumsley, said alcohol was “the real problem” for Davies, and both she and Coghill were “truly sad individuals” engaged in a “wholly inappropriate relationship”.

“This was a bizarre injury and a somewhat bizarre case,” he said.