A former prisoner has lost his High Court claim seeking at least €60,000 damages for injuries he allegedly sustained when punched by a fellow inmate.
Mr Justice Conor Dignam was not satisfied Trevor Knowles proved that Mountjoy Prison, the Irish Prison Service and the Minister for Justice were liable for his injuries.
Mr Knowles sought damages for alleged lacerations to his upper lip and the back of his head.
The judge said the defendants put Mr Knowles on proof of his narrative of the June 2013 incident in the toilet of the prison kitchen area, where the two prisoners were working. The defendants denied any liability, primarily on the basis that the assault was sudden, unprovoked and not reasonably foreseeable.
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The judge believed Mr Knowles was assaulted and that the apparent sanctioning of the other inmate tended to support the contention the attack was unprovoked.
However, the judge was not satisfied that Mr Knowles’s recollection was accurate, as he said in cross-examination that he remembers very little of the incident and that he was relying on what others told him about the event. This could be because he was dazed, said the judge.
The judge said he must dismiss the case, but the absence of a particular prison record relating to the alleged incident may have deprived Mr Knowles of an opportunity to point to evidence supporting his account. This must be considered when later determining who should pay the legal and other costs associated with the case, the judge said.
During the trial, Mr Knowles told the court he was smoking in a kitchen-area toilet, where prisoners often smoked, when another inmate kicked the door open and punched him in the mouth. He claimed he was knocked back in the chair he was sitting in and then stood up and struggled with the other prisoner.
He alleged an alarm was activated and a large number of prison officers burst into the toilet, causing him to fall backwards against the radiator.
Mr Knowles alleged he was frog-marched out and did not get to the medical centre, despite bleeding and passing out. He told the court he was only brought to the Mater Hospital a number of hours later.
Mr Knowles claimed his attacker had been disciplined the day before the incident, was in a rage before the attack, and should have been removed from his work in the kitchen that day. He also claimed the lack of CCTV or in-person supervision in the toilets was a breach of duty in circumstances where he alleged inmates were allowed to smoke there.
The judge said a prison officer acknowledged prisoners smoked in the bathroom but were not permitted to do so. The officer told the court that the man who allegedly attacked Mr Knowles had been working in the kitchen for about five months and had never before had any issues there. He said no alarm was activated about the incident, and the judge felt this was likely accurate.
The judge did not find Mr Knowles’s account about the medical treatment to be accurate, as it contradicted medical records that described his injuries and said his wounds were cleaned and he was to be transferred to a hospital emergency department.
Mr Justice Dignam said the fact he was not convinced Mr Knowles was correct in his recollection in several respects could not, in itself, be determinative of the case in circumstances where an assault did occur.
The judge concluded there was insufficient evidence to show the prison authorities could have reasonably foreseen the incident based on the other prisoner’s prior demeanour. A lack of supervision in the toilet was not a breach of duty, he held.
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