Teeth-pulling case: Guilty of six charges, cleared of four others

Philip Lyle Hansen in the dock during his trial, for offences involving pulling the teeth of his victims. Photo / NZ Herald

The man who yanked women's teeth out with a pair of pliers has this afternoon been found guilty of six assault and indecent assault charges.

A jury found Philip Lyle Hansen not guilty of four other charges including rape and assault.

Hansen has been on trial in the Wellington District Court facing 10 charges including sex charges and assault.

The jury of nine men and three women deliberated for five hours before returning with the unanimous verdicts.

Hansen stood quietly in the dock while the verdicts were read out.

He was found guilty on two charges of wounding with intent to injure, two of male assaults female, one of assault with intent to injure and one of indecent assault.

He was acquitted of two wounding with intent to injure charges, one of rape and one of injure with intent to injure.

The guilty charges related to offences committed by Hansen against two women. Hansen removed four teeth from one of those women, who only had a chip on one of her teeth.

The other woman had a tooth pulled from her mouth with pliers while she was having sex with Hansen in a car on the Petone foreshore. Hansen also put pliers into her mouth on another occasion.

In a separate incident the woman woke to find Hansen had put her into a headlock and pushing on her teeth and at a later stage was also indecently assaulted by him.

The charges spanned over a period of more than 20 years from 1988 to 2011 in the Wellington area.

Earlier, today Judge Bruce Davidson summed up the case for the jury.

The defence said the incidents were consensual, he said.But the prosecution pointed to Hansen's obsession with teeth, that a pair of pliers was found in his bedside drawer with blood and DNA from one of the complainants, and hundreds of searches about tooth extraction found on his computer, he said.

The prosecution also said there was a delay in the women making complaints against him because of Hansen's controlling behaviour over them.

Meanwhile, the defence said all evidence given by the complainants should be rejected because the women colluded, most likely out of "regret and bitterness", Judge Davidson said.

Hansen was remanded in custody until sentencing on June 19.