An inmate of Dublin’s Mountjoy Prison was brought before Dublin District court after being charged in relation to the assault of a prison officer in August last year.
Philip McCormick (53) was found guilty of assaulting Jamie Baron on the day in question during a routine cell relocation.
The court heard that McCormick, who pleaded not guilty to assault and claimed prisoner officers had “beat” him up, was being moved from an area of the prison called Delta 3 to a new cell on Delta one when he became “agitated” after learning that cell he was being relocated to was where a man had died from an overdose 8 days earlier.
The accused has 92 previous convictions including the use of a mobile phone while incarcerated.
Judge Michele Finan heard that, having entered the cell willingly, McCormick tried to exit about 20 minutes later in the midst of which he swung a piece of wood with tiles on it towards prison officers, making contact with the forearm of Baron.
A second prison officer who was on the scene at the time, Ian Redmond, said that McCormick “took up a piece of wood and swung it at us”, causing him to duck when he saw it coming at his head.
The court heard that the implement in question was a plank of wood approximately 60cm in length that had tiles glued onto it to form a “mosaic”, which the accused had fashioned as a tribute to his nephew, which had “RIP Jamie” inscribed on it.
Defending counsel Yvonne Banbury, argued that her client had experienced “terrible fear and foreboding” regarding the move to the cell and that he “did not intend to assault” officer Baron.
She said that her client claimed he had sustained an injury to his wrist after being restrained by the officers after the incident with the mosaic for which he needed to wear a support for a number of weeks, however the officers denied knowledge of his having sustained an injury.
Deidre Clarke, the class officer in charge of the area at the time of the incident testified that, although a death had occurred in the cell, Mountjoy is a “working prison” and that the accused was being moved in order to get him off the floor in the “overcrowded” cell he had been in.
“It was a spare bed that had to be filled,” she said.
She said that McCormick, who previously served a 9 year sentence for false imprisonment, “came out swinging” from the cell.
Prisoner gives evidence.
Entering the witness stand, McCormick said that he was “pushed” into the cell before the door was “closed” behind him.
He claimed that the cell was “dirty” and had “teabags all over the place” and that the officers had used “excessive force” on him.
Becoming tearful, he said, “They just bet me up,” and that he was “not a violent person”.
“They were being real nasty to me,” he said, adding, “I’ve seen a lot of incidents in the prison.”
“I wanted to get out of the cell, I was panicking”, he said, adding, “I had a panic attack.”
Having heard all the facts, Judge Finan commented that, “What happened, happened, but there was a reason for it.”
The court convicted the accused and sentenced him to a 6 month sentence which was suspended for 2 years on his own bond of €200.