AN ARMY driver who tore the flesh off a man’s face at a packed nightclub has been jailed for nearly 10 years.

In sentencing Keenan Samuelson at Oxford Crown Court today, Judge Peter Ross called the unprovoked bite attack which left his victim permanently scarred ‘unspeakable savagery’.

Clubbers who saw the early hours violence on the RnB dancefloor at The Bridge nightclub described seeing flesh ‘fly’ across the dance floor after Samuelson sunk his teeth into his victim.

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The 27-year-old of Tyne Road, Abingdon, had denied wounding with intent but admitted wounding in the early hours of April 8, 2017.

At the end of his trial last month jurors took just two hours to unanimously convict him.

During the trial jurors saw CCTV footage which showed Samuelson pour a drink over his victim’s head before grabbing his neck and then biting him a number of times.

This attack left Nikitas Arnaoutoglou, a psychiatrist who was out with friends and did not know his attacker, permanently scarred.

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During police interview Samuelson had claimed he was so drunk that night he could not remember the violence.

In a victim personal statement read to the court at Samuleson’s sentencing hearing today, Mr Arnaoutoglou described the attack as ‘primal rage’ and said it had left him afraid to be in crowds as well as physically scarred from his injury.

In mitigation Samuelson’s defence barrister Piers Mostyn said that his client had been a promising candidate for a junior officer role with the Army until the horrific attack.

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He said that Samuelson was making efforts to tackle his drinking and said: “He is not a person who is routinely behaving like this or thinks it is a clever thing to do in some way.” He added that the attack was a ‘brief episode.’

Sentencing, Judge Peter Ross said: “[The victim] could not have done more to dissuade you from violence. He offered not a single jot of provocation.

“You seized him by the throat and whilst holding him by the throat [...] you committed an act of unspeakable savagery.

“One witness described a piece of flesh flying across the dance floor and the photo showed the horrific nature of the injury that you caused.

“They were very hard to look at and I pity the poor jury who had to look at that. An entire portion of [the victim’s] cheek had been removed so that I could see what I believed to be the lower gum exposed.”

Samuelson was jailed for nine and a half years and must pay a victim surcharge.