A DRUG-CRAZED man sat astride a woman tearing strips of flesh from her face during a horrific daytime attack.

Shocked witnesses, including children, saw Gavin Christopher Taylor, 24, pulling at her flesh "like a dog with a stick", a court heard.

Taylor, who has no previous convictions, was yesterday jailed for 20 months after the prosecution agreed to accept his guilty plea to unlawful wounding.

Durham Crown Court heard that, despite potential permanent scarring to the victim's cheek, the prosecution agreed not to proceed with the more serious allegation of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

Ian West, prosecuting, said it was accepted Taylor was under the influence of the mind-altering drug LSD and, therefore, unable to form any "intent".

He told the court it took place on July 3, last year, at 8.30am, when the 27-year-old mother-of-three heard screaming and banging from a nearby house in Arnold Road, Darlington.

Her husband investigated and helped a distressed woman from the house.

His wife went into the street where Taylor was "ranting and riving, kicking walls and drain pipes and banging his head off walls".

Taylor approached her and began punching her wildly. He dragged her to the ground before sitting on her, biting her cheek.

"She described him being like a wild animal and then felt a terrible pain in her left cheek as she struggled," said Mr West.

"Witnesses describe seeing his head moving from side to side like a dog with a stick."

He was dragged off and the woman was eventually taken to hospital in Middlesbrough for plastic surgery to her cheek.

Taylor, of North Road, Darlington, told police he had a bad trip, with little memory of the incident.

Jim Withyman, for Taylor, said it was totally out of character and he was genuinely remorseful.

He had taken LSD previously but never suffered such a reaction, and now steers clear of drugs.

Jailing him, Recorder Ian Thorp told Taylor, a glassware company production line worker: "Despite your previous clean record I can't get away from the fact this was a particularly vicious attack on a helpless lady."