Driver tells of picking up his bitten-off nose

Press, 10 November 1983, Page 12

Driver tells of picking up his bitten-off nose

PA Auckland A taxi-driver has told a Court how he picked up his nose and gave it to ambulance officers after it was bitten off in a fight. Mr William Paniora, of Herne Bay, was giving evidence in the District Court at Auckland in a case in which August Joseph Williams, aged 27, a machine operator, of Glen Eden, pleaded not guilty to a charge of injuring with intent to do grievous bodily harm on July 31. Mr Paniora told Judge Imrie that about 3 a.m. he drove a woman to an Avondale address. She asked him to wait. After about five minutes he heard someone whimper, and with his spotlight he saw a man fighting with his passenger. “I got on my radio and asked the operator to send the police down. While that was going on the man came out to the car and said, ‘What the heck are you doing?’ He was quite agitated,” Mr Paniora said.

“I drove the taxi out of his way. He kept on following. I must have driven

about 100 yards up the road when another taxi arrived. “He was still approaching me, so I got out and said that all I wanted was my taxi fare.” Mr Paniora said Williams hit him, so he retaliated with a punch. The other taxi-driver was looking on. “The guy grabbed me, put me up against my taxi with my arms pinned to my body, and bit my nose off,” Mr Paniora said.

“I did not know what he was doing until he actually dislodged a piece.” He said he and Williams fell to the ground fighting. Williams tried to bite him on a leg. “The other taxi-driver threw himself between both of us, and the guy got up and walked back down the road,” said Mr Paniora. “An ambulance came and I gave the officers the piece of nose which I found on the ground.” Mr Paniora spent about four weeks at Middlemore Hospital, where his nose was grafted-back. The Judge reserved decision until Monday. Bail for Williams was continued.