Man accused of pulling woman’s teeth out with pliers during sex

The jury at Wellington District Court was played a police video – recorded in 2012 – in which one of four women alleged to have been assaulted by Philip Lyle Hansen gave evidence. She told how she took a drive with Hansen one evening during the early 1990s before the couple parked up and moved to the back seat of the car to have sex.

She claimed that Hansen then produced a pair of pliers and an oily rag, and proceeded to extract six of her bottom teeth while holding her against the door. He threw the teeth out of the car window and used the oily rag to stop the bleeding, she said, as reported by the New Zealand Herald.

The woman said Hansen had told her to open her mouth before he began to remove her teeth. “I think at the time he said he didn’t like women with bad breath and smokers,” said the woman, who admitted she had been drinking but said she was not drunk. “After that sixth tooth came out I got him to stop….I was getting sore and I didn’t want him to go any further,” she said.

The second woman to testify against Hansen said he had pulled out four of her teeth with pliers while they were in a relationship, and a third – who met Hansen online in 2009 – said he had been pleased to learn that she had false teeth.

“He said he liked gummy women and that he’d rather I didn’t have teeth, that I was far more beautiful without them,” she said, as reported in The Guardian.

Crown prosecutor Sally Carter had told the jury at the start of the trial that: “(He) bizarrely had a fascination with their teeth, or a fascination or obsession with them not having any teeth.”

And, after hearing evidence from prosecution witnesses, Judge Bruce Davidson told the jury of undisputed computer evidence that Hansen had carried out Google searches for ‘pulling out teeth with pliers’, ‘pulling out your own teeth’ and ‘fat gummy women’.

Hansen, 56, from Wellington, is also alleged to have attempted to remove the teeth of one victim with a screwdriver. He denies 11 charges, including unlawful sexual connection, and wounding with intent to injure four women.