A SOLDIER who bit off a chunk of a colleague’s ear in a drunken attack has been jailed for 18 months.

Leslie Ellison had earlier bitten another man’s nose in an unprovoked attack during a booze-fuelled rampage at RAF Lyneham.

Now the 32-year-old corporal, who has worked with special forces as an air dispatch crew commander, will be drummed out of the Army.

Tessa Hingston, prosecuting, told Swindon Crown Court the incident took place on the airbase in October 2010. She said Cpl Michael Edwards had brought his cousin Neil Jarmolinski to the event. In the bar, Ellison was behaving in a rowdy, drunken way, getting involved in a number of scraps.

In the toilets, Mr Jarmolinski became aware of the defendant behind him landing a blow to the back of his head. As he was on the ground Ellison climbed on top of him and sank his teeth into his nose while another man kicked him. When Cpl Edwards found what had happened he went across to Ellison and threw a punch at him, but slipped backwards on the wet floor.

The defendant then got on top of him and bit a 3cm by 1cm chunk from his left ear, spitting it out on to the floor.The defendant was seen outside with a friend afterwards, stumbling into a flowerbed and was later found to have a broken leg and dislocated ankle.

Ellison, of Kopernik Road, pleaded guilty to two charges of grievous bodily harm. Marcus Davey, defending, said his client had been in the Royal Logistics Corps for 14 years.

Mr Davey said his client would lose his job if he received a jail term, leaving his family and his unit to suffer as a result. He said that one of his client’s senior officers had received a call from Cpl Edwards saying he did not want him jailed.

But passing sentence, Judge Euan Ambrose said: “I can’t determine sentence by the wishes of Mr Edwards.”