A woman was left with lasting facial injuries when a man burst into her Brighton home and attacked her with a fire extinguisher, a court was told.
Lee Witts smashed in the front door of Stephanie Foss’s house, in Lower Bevendean Avenue, she told a jury at Lewes Crown Court today (Thursday 13 April).
Witts had already attacked her husband and he had run off, calling the police from a nearby shop, the jury heard.
Ms Foss had been trying to call her husband Richard Bond just before she was attacked and her exchanges with Witts were recorded on Mr Bond’s voicemail – and played to the court.
She told the jury: “He was terrifying. He was bright red in the face and he was screaming and angry.”
Witts used a fire extinguisher that was kept near her kitchen door and smashed her in the face with it, Ms Foss said, telling the jury: “My nose just popped. It started bleeding straight away. And my eye.”
The force of the assault with the fire extinguisher smashed a titanium dental plate into the roof of her mouth, breaking the hard palate.
She also suffered a broken nose, broken jaw and fractured eye socket and her bottom set of teeth flew out, she said, and hadn’t been found since.
As a result, she had had to live on a diet of soft food and had only been given a new top set of teeth a month ago – a year on from the attack.
She said that Lee Witts, 47, of Newtonhill, in Aberdeenshire, and his son Michael Witts, 26, of Foster Court, York Avenue, Hove, were in her house when she and her husband returned home on Saturday 5 March last year.
Mr Bond told the court that after Lee Witts attacked him, he was almost hit by a taxi in the road before freeing himself and fleeing.
The jury was told that Michael Witts followed for a few yards but gave up the chase.
Lee Witts, formerly of Albion Street, Southwick, and Gordon Road, Fishersgate, and Michael Witts face four charges – all of which they deny.
Both men are being tried for assaulting Richard Bond and his lodger Stephen Woodall, causing them actual bodily harm (ABH).
The father and son are also accused of causing Stephanie Foss grievous bodily harm (GBH) with intent and robbery, stealing her cash and mobile phone.
The jury were shown phone records that were said to be between Lee Witts and Richard Bond, quibbling over a drug debt.
Mr Bond told the jury that the pair had met in prison some years before.
The trial continues.
