A MAN who bit off the end of his room-mate’s thumb when an argument about the volume of the television became violent has been jailed for two years.
Olegs Nikitenko had clamped down with his teeth with such force they went right through before he spat out part of his victim’s finger.
The 26-year-old, of Bond Street in Rugby, pleaded not guilty at Warwick Crown Court to causing grievous bodily harm to fellow Latvian Germans Sinikajevs with intent to cause him serious injury.
The jury, which was shown what were described of as gruesome photographs of the thumb, took just over an hour of deliberation to clear him of that charge, but found him guilty of an alternative offence of inflicting grievous bodily harm, which he had also denied.
Recorder Martin Jackson told him there was no alternative to immediate imprisonment.
The court heard the pair arrived in the country in last year, working at the Tesco distribution centre and sharing a room in the house they lived in.
The two were said to have got on well, but in February an argument broke out between them after Nikitenko, who wanted to watch something on his computer, complained about Germans having the television on too loud.
Prosecutor Matthew Barnes said: “During the course of their struggle a mirror smashed, and there was broken glass on the floor and both of them received cuts. It ended with the defendant inflicting a very serious and unpleasant wound to the thumb of the complainant.
“During the struggle Germans’ left thumb, accidentally according to him, went into the defendant’s mouth whereupon the defendant bit off the end of his thumb and spat it out.
“If you can imagine the sort of force that would have required because it went through the nail, you may conclude that showed a determined intention.”
Mr Sinikajevs sought help from a housemate before walking into the centre of Rugby where an ambulance and police were called.
Nikitenko had claimed it was his roommate who had started the violence and denied intentionally biting Mr Sinikajevs’ thumb, claiming it had loosening one of his teeth when he pulled it out of his mouth.
