Dealer, 17, stabbed woman in mouth

A DRUG dealer aged just 17 plunged a hunting knife into a woman’s mouth after he had taken over her flat to sell drugs.

The victim, 28, had tried to force out the gang after they ‘cuckooed’ her apartment.

The teenager attacked her with the knife, cutting off her lip and severing an artery in her tongue, Norwich Crown Court heard.

She was rushed to hospital for surgery. In an impact statement read by the victim, who used to be a keen singer, she said she now speaks with a lisp and is disfigured. She said the injury means she now finds it difficult to eat, swallow or sing.

Judge Anthony Bate said the boy had been involved in Class A drug dealing which he described as ‘an evil trade’.

He said: ‘It was a sustained assault on a vulnerable victim.’

The 17-year-old was sentenced to three years’ detention in a young offender institution last week after he admitted attacking the defenceless woman.