An ear-biting thug who was jailed for smashing a bottle over a man’s head at Wembley Stadium has been cleared of another attack outside Tottenham’s ground after a series of prosecution blunders.

Barry Ansell, 37, was said to have head-butted Matt Taylor with his son, Ammi Ansell, 20, at the FA Cup tie between Spurs and Burnley on 14 January last year.

But it took nine months for police to charge the Ansells with assault and the Crown Prosecution Service then failed to disclose vital evidence to the defence.

Ansell snr, who is serving a four-year prison sentence for the attack in Wembley during Chelsea’s 2-0 win over Tottenham in the League Cup final last March, has a horrendous record for violence.

The thug, who is now confined to a wheelchair after suffering a stroke, was on license at the time for stabbing a woman in a row over her dog.

He also bit the top of a man’s ear off during a fight outside a bar in 2005 and chewed off the tip of a man’s thumb on 21 October 2001 during a fight in a kebab shop.

Three years earlier he held a man down on a pool table and chomped on his ear exposing cartilage because he lost a game.

Hammersmith Magistrates’ Court heard defence lawyers had made a number of requests for the vital evidence, which the CPS seemingly ignored.

Prosecutor Kevin Christie was unable to explain the failures and after a short adjournment district Judge Quentin Purdy dismissed the case against the Ansells.

The judge also ordered the CPS to pay all Ammi Ansell’s travel expenses.

Both men denied and were cleared of assault by beating.

Ansell snr was taken back to Pentonville Prison while his son, from Harlow in Essex, walked free.