A teenage girl was required to receive 50 stitches after her face was bitten off by a stranger while riding the bus. Ella Dowling, 19, was riding the bus home when a fellow passenger identified as Darren Taylor began making inappropriate comments to her and her friends.
Dowling stated that the incident occurred around 8:15pm on November 18, 2023. According to the young adult. Taylor was allegedly intoxicated when he began marking several lewd remarks about Dowling and her friends. "I noticed him when we got on the bus, he was strange and kept asking 'are you girls off out," the girl recounted to The Sun .
Despite the trio trying to end the interaction, Taylor did not take the hint and continued to harass the girls. "When we told him to leave us alone, he started calling us 'white trash' and that he was a 'gangster,'" she continued. Dowling stated. that as the bus came to a stop, Taylor seemed to launch himself at her and began biting her mouth and nose.
"I couldn't scream because he had my lip in his mouth, it was disgusting," Dowling said adding that "the pain I felt when he sank his teeth into my face is something which will stay with me forever."
"He was like a dog with a toy; moving his head side to side," Dowling said in the aftermath of the attack. "I put my hands around the back of his head because I knew if I didn't he would rip my lip and nose off completely."
Dowling said that she "couldn't scream because he had my lip in his mouth, it was disgusting." Startled by the sudden attack, it took the girl's friends several seconds to realize what was happening and scream for help. "The pain was horrific and I could feel his whole body shaking- when I looked down at my clothes after they were covered in blood."
After the man was pulled off her, Dowling states that her left nostril to her lower lip was 'hanging off' her face. According to the teen, the whole ordeal lasted five minutes. Dowling was rushed to the hospital where she was forced to undergo a two-and-a-half-hour reconstructive procedure in order to fix all the damage done to her.
In the aftermath of the surgery and the attack, the girl revealed that she had not been on a bus. "I haven't used the bus since because of my PTSD," she told The Sun. "If I leave the house, I have to be on the phone with my mum or a friend because I'm terrified that I'm going to be attacked again.
Along with the psychological effects of the attack, Dowling has stated that she has found eating and drinking to be an uncomfortable experience. Eating and drinking can still be painful if I eat on a certain side," she admitted.
According to her doctors, Dowling would be scarred for life. "People say that my scar is healing well but for me, it's more than a scar, it's a disfigurement and a permanent reminder of what's happened to me," she ruminated. "I smile and speak differently which is something I'm going to have to learn to live with for the rest of my life."
Taylor was later arrested by police and charged with grievous bodily harm. During his interview with police, Taylor said that he was "not well" and that "he must have lost control and cannot go around hurting people." According to the detectives in the case, the girls were severe.
“The injuries Taylor caused were some of the worst I have ever seen," Detective Constable Sophie McGough said. "His actions that evening were awful, and I am glad that he will now spend time behind bars." Taylor was given an almost seven-year stint in jail and a restraining order against Dowling.
Police were later informed that Taylor plans to appeal the sentence. Since the sentencing, Dowling has tried to move on. "Whilst I'm glad he's been sentenced, there's no way he couldn't be, it was all caught on CCTV," she said. "I still don't know to this day why he did it."
According to the girl, she was forced to leave her university for a year while she dealt with the attack."I've started university again this year and I'm hopeful that I'll be able to continue." she said. "I refuse to be defined by this because I'm not a victim, I'm a survivor."
"I want to get back to the bubbly and outgoing person I used to be but it's going to take time," she said.
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