Man gets prison time for punching jail guard

An Alberta man who fractured a jail guard’s nose by punching him in the face was sentenced recently to two years in prison. Taylor Robert Murphy, 25, appeared before Chief Judge Nany Orr in provincial court in Charlottetown where he pleaded guilty to assaulting a correctional officer. The court heard Murphy was serving time at the Provincial Correctional Centre on a prior conviction for assault causing bodily harm.

A guard was moving him from a cell on Sept. 27 when Murphy punched him once, fracturing his nose and bruising his forehead. The two-year sentence was a joint recommendation from the Crown and defence.

During Murphy’s time in P.E.I., he has spent more than a year in jail after a string of offences that included threatening a police officer, kicking in a post office window and punching a stranger who was walking by him on the street.

While in custody, Murphy threw a chair at another inmate and knocked him unconscious before punching the victim in the head several times.

Defence lawyer Thane MacEachern said Murphy’s plan is to return to western Canada after his release.

The latest sentence will be consecutive to any other time Murphy is already serving. Murphy will be under a weapons prohibition and must provide a DNA sample for the national databank.