Charlotte McCarter has shared shocking photos showing the extent of her injuries and has described the ‘immense pain’ she was in following the vicious attack.
A mum was left scarred for life after her friend bit off part of her lip during a drunken row.
Charlotte McCarter, 34, needed 42 stitches and was bleeding profusely after a heated argument turned violent. She had been drinking at home with her ex-boyfriend and his partner Paris Brown back in 2023 when Brown became angry due to a disagreement over how much alcohol she’d had to drink.
The now-26 year old then lunged towards her friend, pulled her by the hair, and bit her on the lip, ripping away flesh, before telling her she was going to kill her.
At Preston Crown Court last week, Brown, 26, was given a suspended prison sentence of one year after she pleaded guilty to grievous bodily harm.
Now, Ms McCarter has shared shocking photos showing the extent of her injuries and has described the ‘immense pain’ she was in following the vicious attack, which has left her permanently scarred.
Speaking following the sentencing, the traumatised retail worker, who lives in Dalton, Lancs., said: “The top bit of my lip was just hanging off.
“The bottom bit had a 1cm laceration – it was just missing, it was nowhere to be found. There was no way that could have been added back.
“The pain was immense – I got home from Furness General Hospital at around 3am and I had to be at Preston General Hospital – about two hours away on the train – at 9am.
“By the time I got there, I was still in numb and in shock. When I got there, they numbed my mouth and did the surgery. After that they told me to try and rest for an hour and I could go home.
“I got the train home, it was awful. Within 20 minutes of the anaesthetic running out I was in tears. The pain was so bad I was crying, my mouth was throbbing so much.
“I couldn’t drink, I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t even speak. My lips felt on fire. It was awful.”
Charlotte says she is put off from smiling because of the scar left on her lips, and that she now has to drink only from the right side of her mouth or else she will dribble.
She said: “When I smile, I feel conscious of it. It’s an obvious dip in my face, you can tell that something’s missing. After it happened, it was very hard for me.
“I had to take a couple of weeks off work – I’m public-facing, I couldn’t go out like that. When it first happened there were rumours going around like ‘she’s been shot’, ‘she’s stabbed her’, etc.
“No-one really mentions the injuries, unless they don’t know me and they’re talking to me for a length of time. They’ll ask ‘do you have a cleft palate and I have to say ‘no, I was attacked’, which is quite hard to explain to people.”
Charlotte has said she thinks it’s ‘shocking’ that Brown didn’t receive an immediate prison sentence. Suspending Brown’s one-year sentence for a year, Judge Andrew Jefferies KC said: “The message should be that people go to prison. However, the reality is, this offence was committed over two years ago.
“That delay has been caused because it took one year to get you into the court system, but then you pleaded not guilty and hung out with that plea for a long period of time.
“However, the real victims if you were to go to prison would be your children, who are the only blameless ones in all of this.”
Charlotte said: “It does shock me it’s taken this long to get court because of her pleading not guilty and then pleading guilty at the last minute.
“For it to go to court and then result in a suspended sentence – how can that be? It’s absolutely shocking, it kind of gives people the idea that ‘yeah, you can do this, it’s fine, you can get away with it'”.
