A domestic abuse survivor has described the horrific moment her former partner bit off part of her lip in a busy pub.
Kate Byrne had just finished singing karaoke when jealous David Booth lunged at her and sunk his teeth into her face.
Panic rose among fellow pub-goers as they saw the grandmother drenched in blood.
Booth, 58, of Fife, was jailed for three years for assaulting, abducting and threatening her, and for an offence against another woman.
He had already served time for the pub attack, which left Kate permanently scarred.
Kate, 58, described her experience with Booth as “like a horror story”.
She met the brute, previously of Station Court, Leven, in January 2014 through a dating website after the end of her marriage.
At first she was unsure of the Amazon warehouse worker, who lived in Dunfermline at the time, but he persuaded her to go out with him and soon moved into her home in Moodiesburn.
However, his jealously and controlling behaviour plagued their relationship from the start and he would become aggressive when she spoke to other people.
Kate said: “He tried to control you all the time. He always had to make sure he knew where you were and I had to answer the phone right away. If you didn’t, he wanted to know why you missed the call.”
After a series of terrifying assaults, the couple split up but on January 2 he turned up at the taxi driver’s home and insisted on accompanying her as she left for a night out with friends.
In the Storm Queen pub an employee who saw him glaring at her from the bar had warned her to watch out.
When she leaned over to speak to a man sitting at her table, Booth came over and angrily accused her of kissing him.
Later, as she finished her karaoke stint Booth grabbed her by the shoulders.
She said: “People would have thought he was kissing me but he launched at me and bit into my lip.
“The pain was horrendous, I was frozen to the spot.
“I didn’t know it was off then but the blood was all down my face and my blouse.
“The police were phoned and they found my lip on the dance floor where he bit it off.”
Kate was rushed to the Southern General Hospital where her lip was reconstructed but she still suffers numbness and her speech is affected.
Even after Booth was jailed, she said she feared he would come for her.
She said: “I had to put chains on my door, even though I knew he was inside.”
Kate believes Booth targeted her when she was at her lowest ebb.
She said: “I felt totally worthless. I was told I could do better than him but I didn’t believe it.”
Now in a happy relationship, Kate said her new partner had helped her through the trauma inflicted on her by Booth.
She said: “It took me about 18 months to deal with it, to get my head back on the straight and narrow.”
A jury at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court found Booth guilty of of assaulting Kate, detaining her against her will and behaving in a threatening and abusive manner towards her.
The offences happened in Chalmers Street, Dunfermline, and in BJ’s pub in Glasgow between February 2014 and January 2015.
He was also convicted of behaving in a threatening and abusive manner towards the other woman at addresses in Leslie and Kirkcaldy between September and November 2016.
Non-harrassment orders were made in respect of both women.
The court heard Booth was in a new relationship and was engaged to be married.
