A FOOTBALL fan allegedly knocked a dog-sitter’s front teeth out after getting so drunk on match day that he fell through his front door.
Rhys Munslow has gone on trial at Exeter Crown Court accused of assaulting young mother Laura Goodwin after returning to his flat in Newton Abbot from a Torquay United game.
She said he was so drunk that he was talking to non-existing people and tripped over as he walked into his flat, falling head first onto a coffee table.
She told a jury that he then attacked his two dogs when they tried to greet him, forcing her to take them to his bedroom where she barricaded herself in with them.
She said Munslow burst in and attacked her, pinning her on a bed, throttling her, and hitting her mouth with either a knee, elbow or fist.
The jury have been shown graphic body-worn footage taken by police who went to her rescue after she escaped from his flat in Queen Street with blood pouring from her injured mouth.
She lost two teeth straight away and five more had been loosened so severely that they had to be removed, causing her to wear dentures.
Munslow, aged 26, of Queen Street, Newton Abbot, denies assault causing actual bodily harm. He says he did not carry out the attack.
Mr Brian Fitzherbert, prosecuting, said Munslow attacked Ms Goodwin after returning from a Torquay United match at around 8.30pm on October 2, 2021.
He showed the jury images which she took while in an ambulance and bodycam footage taken by police of her sobbing hysterically and with blood pouring out of her mouth.
She told the officer: ‘He’s going psycho in there, he is going to kill the dogs. He’s just knocked my teeth out.’
Mr Fitzherbert said she had been in an on off relationship with Munslow for about a year and had stayed at his flat that day to look after his two pets, an American bulldog and a Staffie.
She was filmed with her injuries outside his flat at 9.09 pm and police then tried to rouse him by knocking on the door before breaking it down when he did not answer.
They found him asleep, naked in bed, with injuries including apparent bite marks and scratches to his back.
Ms Goodwin told the jury Munslow was so drunk or under the influence of something that he fell through the front door of his top floor flat, while talking to an imaginary person on the stairs.
He then fell over onto a coffee table, cut his head, and attacked the dogs when they went to greet him, punching one of them.
She retreated to the bedroom with the animals and tried to jam the door shut by leaning her back against it while bracing herself against a wardrobe.
She said: ‘He was punching and kicking at the door and trying to barge his way in. My foot slipped and me managed to get in.
‘He pinned me down on the bed with his hand around my throat and with his knees on my arms.
‘He was swearing and I was screaming for help. There was a huge kerfuffle with the dogs jumping on the bed. I felt an impact on my face, maybe two or three, I lost count .
‘Then I saw the blood and felt the pain in my lower jaw. It could have been his elbow or his knee. It did not feel like a fist. I was screaming for help and wriggled out.’
She said he called her fat and worthless and appeared strange and unable to accept that he had caused her injuries.
She said: ‘He had a gormless expression and said ‘I didn’t do that, did I?
‘I thought he had taken something. He was not in his right mind. He was talking to people who weren’t there. He was so drunk he didn’t know what he had done.’
Munslow gave evidence that he had only drunk two or three pints but had argued with Ms Goodwin because she complained about him coming home later than planned.
He said there had been no violence at the flat and she had no injuries when she left. He said he had no idea how she came to be hurt but that he had not done it.
He explained his own injuries by saying he had been in a play fight with a friend the previous day.