Inmate-gamer in attack

A RISDON prisoner grabbed a staff member around the neck, punched him in the head and spat in his face after being asked to pack away a Sony PlayStation.

Adrian Wayne Smillie was found guilty in the Hobart Magistrates Court yesterday of common assault after an incident at Risdon Prison on January 22 last year.

The staff member told the court Smillie had both hands around his neck “as tight as they could possibly be” when he became angry after being directed out of an activities room.

“I thought I was being strangled,” the staff member told the court.

He said he told Smillie it was the end of a shift and the activities room needed to be packed away, including the PlayStation. The staffer said Smillie then “started yelling and punched a glass wall”.

“I was just standing there asking him to go to his room,” he said. “He started yelling ... he was yelling stuff about saving his game. He then lunged at me, put both hands around my throat and proceeded to strangle me … I could not get his hands off my neck.”

He said Smillie then “punched me in the side of the head and spat in my face”.

The worker told the court he suffered a pinched nerve in the neck, required surgery and has been left with six screws and two plates in his spine.

A female staff member, who came to the aid of the victim and witnessed the assault, told the court he “was turning red and appeared to be in distress”.

“I thought he [Smillie] was trying to kill him,” she said.

Smillie pleaded not guilty to the charge and told police, in a recorded interview played to the court, the staff member had challenged him to a fight and orchestrated the alterca- tion so the staffer could have time off work. He said the staff member was on a “power trip” and he was within his rights to be playing the PlayStation.

“He [the staff member] said ‘everyone out’ and I said ‘I’ve booked the room … we have permission to be here’,” Smillie said.

In the interview, Smillie alleged the prison worker started shoving him against a wall.

“I grabbed him by the throat yes, but I don’t know that I choked him … I tried to hold him back by the throat … I was being attacked.”

The staff member denied he had provoked Smillie, or orchestrated a fight for time off work.

Magistrate Michael Daly said he was “confident to a very high degree that the evidence of [the staff member] is true, and I don’t accept Mr Smillie’s evidence to the contrary.”

The case was adjourned until April 5.